BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Aug. 30, 2007
Dear Editor,
Weather Radar Project
Under a UNDP Project in the mid 1960’s, the British Government provided for Weather Radars to be installed in six of the English speaking Caribbean Countries that were members of the Caribbean Meteorological Organization. Those six countries were Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica and Belize. This was intended to further contribute to improving the weather forecasting capacity in the region, that was being undertaken through training in Meteorology at the Caribbean Meteorological Institute in Barbados.
Unfortunately, the Government of Belize did not accept the offer to be a part of the project at the time, whereby Weather Radars were installed in the other five countries during the mid 1960’s.
Hurricane Beulah
In 1967, Hurricane Beulah began as a storm in the extreme Eastern Caribbean near the island of Martinique on September 7, and intensified to hurricane force on September 8, moving generally west-northwestward, making its first landfall in the Dominican Republic, Haiti. Beulah weakened temporarily to only tropical storm intensity on September 12 and 13 as it crossed the central Caribbean, and weakened slightly again as it moved over the land of the Yucatan Peninsula on September 17.
Beulah was never a threat to Belize. However, as Rene Villanueva recalled on “Lik Road and Mek Wave” on Wednesday, August 22, weather reports were broadcast by Radio Belize at that time to the effect that southern Belize was under hurricane conditions. Fortunately, that turned out to be untrue, as Mr. Villanueva stated.
Saving Face
As a result of the combination of an unwise decision by Government of Belize at the time not to participate in the UNDP Radar Project, and the erroneous information broadcast by the Radio Belize, the Government of Belize subsequently sought to be included in the Radar project.
The Weather Radar was finally installed in 1972-73, and was operational and functioning until the mid to late 1990’s. In 1998, the People’s United Party won the National Elections with an overwhelming majority of 26 seats out of a total of 29 seats. They won with bold statements such as, “We will transform our educational system to produce the scientists – – – that Belize so desperately needs”.
Lack of Interest in Science
Since then, an EU Weather Radar Project, to replace the then aging and failing radars in the Caribbean countries, became a regional priority. However, recognizing the importance of the Weather Radar, not only for hurricane tracking, but also for research purposes and other severe weather forecasting, such as the tracking of thunder storms, measurement of rainfall rates, distribution and amounts of rainfall, especially for “flash flood prediction”, other countries in the region opted to purchase their own Radars, as negotiation with the EU stalled.
Unfortunately, the Government of Belize’s priority over the past ten years did not include the replacement of the Weather Radar, even when consideration was only given, during this time, to the singular importance of tracking an approaching hurricane, if not for its wide ranging scientific importance as a research tool for “our local scientists” at the National Meteorological Service. These are among the scientists whom, “Belize desperately needs”. In addition, the importance of the data collected by the Radar is an invaluable contribution to our participation in Weather Forecasting and Research in the Regional and International scientific arenas.
Government’s Interest – The Derivatives Market, Not Science
Losing Bet in the Derivatives Market
C7 posted (June 15, 2005)
Derivatives: it’s an area of the finance markets referring to highly speculative investments made by daring money managers. Well, you wouldn’t know it (because no one ever disclosed it) but the Government of Belize has been playing and losing in the derivatives market, and GOB’s money managers have been doing it with your money.
A Ministry of Finance document released by the unions today shows alarm in the Ministry over the expected loss of $10 million on what’s described as a “u.s./yen swap conversion.” This term refers to what’s known as a currency swap, where basically the Government of Belize bet one currency against the other. In the year 2000, the Minister of Finance at the time, Ralph Fonseca, designed a transaction where the Government of Belize basically bet that the value of the Japanese Yen would decrease against the value of the U.S. dollar over a 5-year period. The bet was for the value of an $80 million Solomon Smith Barney bond and at the end of it Belize could have gained by the percentage that the yen had weakened against the U.S. dollar.
Well, guess what? It didn’t weaken; in fact, the currencies went sharply in the other direction: the dollar got weaker and the yen strengthened, meaning that the Government of Belize gambled with your money and lost…actually it lost big. We presume this Ministry of Finance figure of $10 million to be an estimate that would put the currency difference at 25% of the $80 million. But whatever the final figure turns out to be, those we spoke to say it will be at least $8 million, and that is payable when the bond comes due which is at the end of this month.
We note that though the transaction involved a huge amount of the country’s money, no disclosure of any kind was, or to date has been made of the intent to carry out the transaction or the expected loss from it. We note that, generally, sovereign nations stay out of the derivatives market because it is considered too risky.
Connecting the Dots
Belizeans, it is interesting, and unfortunate, that the Government of Belize literally gambled away some $8-10 million dollars “in one fell swoop” in 2005, in an adventure which neither the Prime Minister nor the Minister of Finance would have invested their own money; but with the People’s money, they recklessly did so anyway. It is interesting, and unfortunate, that this same Government has found it so difficult during the past 9 years to have negotiated an agreement with the EU, whereby the EU could have provided the Weather Radar by now, in the middle of the 2007 Hurricane Season.
Belizeans, our scientists, the Meteorologists and Hydrologists at the National Meteorological Service, “scientists that Belize so desperately needs” , would have done a much better job of forecasting the torrential rains and flash floods that affected Belize on Wednesday, August 29, 2007. And we have yet to reach the middle of the 2007 Hurricane Season.
Henry G. Gordon