There is more controversy surrounding the Barrow administration’s multi-million-dollar loan write-off program with the Social Security Board (SSB), as the name of the SSB’s CEO, Merlene Bailey-Martinez, put last week on administrative leave pending an audit, on allegations of “insider trading,” appears on the list to which Parliamentarians have given their stamp of approval.
How could the name of Merlene Bailey-Martinez, #453 of 781, appear on the list tabled by Prime Minister Dean Barrow in light of statements he made last week?
One SSB official told us that it was either a “mistake,” or “mischief.”
Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Dean Barrow told the media last Wednesday that “…Mrs. Bailey-Martinez has confirmed to me that she is not proposing her name for even any kind of consideration in terms of whatever might be the Board’s decision, with respect to persons who did that, so I will leave it there.”
He added that “…the only way they could get on that list is if SSB wrote off their loans, [because]… Government has paid $6.9 million, and that’s where it stands.”
Some members of SSB’s staff, including the CEO, were publicly accused of reducing their balances to qualify under the requirement that loans should fit within the $50,000 ceiling to benefit from the write-off.
The Chief Executive Officer in the Office of the Prime Minister, Audrey Wallace, told Amandala Thursday that she had staff in the PM’s office compare the list of last October, 2011, and the list re-issued Thursday, January 12, and the only name that is different on the list is Martinez’s. She said the first list had 780 names, while the new list issued Thursday and approved by Parliament has 781.
When he tabled the list in the House of Representatives on Friday, Prime Minister Dean Barrow said “no name has come off, no name has been added.”
Wallace told us that since the revelation that a Merlene Martinez appears on the list, she has contacted the Prime Minister and his response was: “How could that happen?”
Prime Minister Barrow has been away since Friday’s House meeting, accompanying his wife, Kim Simplis Barrow, abroad for cancer treatment, but he is due to return to the country tomorrow, Friday.
Amandala called Mrs. Bailey-Martinez today, to give her another opportunity to comment, but she declined to speak, signaling again that she is reluctant to speak while the investigation commissioned by the SSB’s board last week is ongoing.
Social Security Board Chairman Lois Young told Amandala today that she does not have any comment on the specifics, since the matter is under investigation by external auditors, Pannell Kerr Forster. Although the main scope of their work is reviewing the staff loans in question, the auditor has also been asked to investigate how the name of Bailey-Martinez ended up on the list, Young told us. The auditor will also be making some recommendations to the board, she added.
We understand that there are at least three versions of the list. One was produced by the SSB as of September 20, 2011, and another produced last Thursday, January 12, 2012, which was intended to add columns to show the initial amounts of the loans that were being written off.
The office of the Prime Minister had also prepared a typed copy of the first list of names, and Amandala has been informed that the name Merlene Martinez does not appear on that typed list – just on the list tabled in the House of Representatives on Friday and the Senate this Tuesday.
Barrow had said on Friday, in presenting the mortgage write-off motion that “the current acting CEO of SSB double-checked the list yesterday [meaning Thursday] to finalize for today’s House meeting.”
Barrow had also said that the SSB “did some disaggregation,” and a copy of the new list was deposited with the House for members to see.
Speaking in the Senate on Tuesday, Opposition People’s United Party Senator Lisa Shoman said, “There are several people here who are ex-staff, and that should raise the question as to whether they got the tip off early enough to be able to benefit from the insider knowledge. There are questions, in fact, as to whether board members or any of their families benefited, staff members and any of their family members benefited, and all of those questions are proper questions in the public’s mind, without seeking to impugn anyone in anyway. A telling excavation of this list, a drill-down of this list, exposes some ugly realities.”
Shoman also referred to Martinez’s name being on the list.
On the list, the original loan appears as an $80,000 loan, with a disbursement date of August 24, 2011. However, the principal balance appears as $20,000 with interest of $31.11. The document—which has the transaction highlighted in black—indicates that it is a staff loan.
“That should raise anybody’s eyebrows,” said Shoman, referring to the loan details. “But if that drill-down was not penetrating enough at number one hundred and thirty-eight, there is someone who got a disbursed loan on the thirtieth September, 2011.”
The details list this as a loan originally from BIMCO (The Belize Investment Company Limited), a now defunct entity, with an original amount of $36,923 and a principal balance of almost the same size, and interest balance of $21,292.14.
In the Senate on Tuesday, Senator Arthur Saldivar also noted that “some very prominent ‘poor’ people in this country” appeared on the list, namely Nicholas Pollard, Jr., and Sr., as well as a “Doctor Cawich.”
(The name on the list is Filberto Cawich, for a $95,000 loan originally from BIMCO and dated 2006, with a principal balance of $41,000.) Saldivar said that they, the Senate, don’t know when the last payments were made on any of these loans.
The schemes from which loans were written off include the Belize National Building Society, SSB staff loans, St. James Building Society, the Ministry of Housing, and BIMCO. The non-SSB loans were sold to the board by the Government as a part of the securitization scheme in which funds were received upfront, but at a discounted rate, for the mixed mortgages.
Apart from the loan motion to write off $17 million worth of loans said to have an impaired value of $6.9 million, the National Assembly also approved the write off of just over $400,000 worth of loans for 17 families, which had been held by the Heritage Bank—originally government loans dating back to 1999.