Beginning with this issue, Amandala will be publishing, in serial form, the 124-page REPORT OF THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING THE SOCIAL SECURITY BOARD. The Report was first published in July of 2006.
This is a very important document, and especially so in light of what has happened on Wall Street, and indeed globally, because of abuses in the mortgage market. The scandal in the Belize Social Security Board which first came to light in July of 2004, involved a so-called “securitization” scheme. The perpetrators, and remember this was a conspiracy at the highest levels of the Government of Belize, used home and real estate mortgages to create domestic and foreign currency liquidity for themselves. Because of their political power and connections, they organized the scheme in such a way that the Social Security Board and the Development Finance Corporation, which is to say the taxpayers of Belize, paid their bills. It was a scam, and the evidence is in the Report.
If chairman Godwin Hulse and his Senate Committee could do all this work to prepare the evidence of the scam, then you, Belizean taxpayer, have to take the time to examine this document. The proof is in the pudding.