So, at the fourth hearing on June 9, the Committee did question Godfrey. But while Narda was driving and listening to Godfrey on her radio, his testimony shocked her to the extent that he almost caused a traffic accident.

?I was on the road the last time Mr. Godfrey was at the Senate hearing and I basically ran off the road when I heard of some of the things he stated. Simply because I know different and I have stated so to the Senate of exactly what I know?? said Garcia.

What was so outrageous about Godfrey?s testimony? Garcia said that neither she nor anybody at the SSB knew that the purpose of the loans for Western Caribbean Properties and Intelco, totaling $17 million, had changed.

Garcia furthermore testified that the SSB knew that the collateral that had backed the loans were not adequate and she had expressed so to the SSB?s investment committee. Afterwards, however, the SSB?s board of directors approved the loan, based on assurances given to them that the monies would have been used to develop the assets.

?The pressure was heavy on the SSB?, Narda said: ??when we started to query and usually we would go to Mr. [Ian] McMillan at BIMCO or with our colleagues at the DFC, you heard things like, we can?t take these mortgages out of the package, because the whole transaction is going to fall. It had taken a long time, I think it was basically a year and a half Mr. McMillan said this morning, for the whole transaction to be receptive into the US market, so that is the kind of pressure I think we could talk about??

She admitted that, even though SSB attempted to do due diligence by examining the St. James books to ensure that they could meet payments for the mortgages in question, there were failures on the part of SSB to go the extra mile to ensure that the security for the loans were adequate; however, when SSB realized that they weren?t, they sought to get the DFC to relieve them of the guarantee they had given to make payments for the two WCP and ITL loans.

Glenn D. Godfrey was the common denominator at both St. James and the DFC.

?Something has gone wrong and that is why we?re here and I guess it?s a blame game. I heard Senator [Godwin] Hulse said a while ago it?s a ring-a-roses issue. Who is to blame, who is who, and who didn?t do what,? she commented.

Disputing what Godfrey had told the Senate Committee at the last hearing, Garcia said that the files for the two mortgages in question had originated at the DFC, and the files included lists of legal and other fees that the DFC had charged for the transactions, in excess of $350,000.

She also disputed another claim Godfrey made, that the two loans only went into default when GOB refused to give Intelco interconnection.

?I listened to Mr. Godfrey?s [testimony] and I said, but Intelco and Western Caribbean did not perform because the collateral was not there; [then there was] the story about the project being changed, etc. But then [I asked], why are Data Pro and Aquarius not performing either? Why not? That is my question. None of the mortgages that were securitized, the ones that we categorized as Glenn D. Godfrey mortgages, or related group of companies, all of them stopped performing at the same time,? she declared.

Glenn Godfrey also told the Senate at the last (fourth) hearing that it was Ian McMillan, former managing director of BIMCO ? the Belize Investment Company Limited, which was an SSB subsidiary, who was managing the entire securitization transaction, and had maintained a residence in the United States to do the job.

McMillan appeared before the Senate this morning, and gave extensive testimony about the whole securitization process. The main point he underscored about the transactions in question, which fell under the North American Securitization Program, was that heavy emphasis was placed on the assets that backed the transactions?that is, the collateral.

Godfrey had told the Senate Committee that, ?The projects are neither here nor there. They?re not material. If you put a panades shop there, and you put a sovereign guarantee behind it, it?ll sell.?

?Utter nonsense!? said McMillan, when Hulse apprised him of Godfrey?s remarks.

McMillan further disclosed that all the parties knew that the collateral for the ITL and WCP loans had not been fully developed, and that was why some of the funds, about $12 to $13 million, were put in a pre-funding account. McMillan said that those funds should only have been moved from that account if DFC had been advised that the collateral had been developed, or the mortgages had been ?perfected.?

To this day, the collateral is undeveloped. However, Garcia recalls a letter from St. James, through Mr. Herman Contreras, saying that the projects had been implemented; however, she can?t recall SSB giving any instruction to release the funds from the escrow account.

What is for certain, though, is that SSB did ask the Central Bank to transfer roughly $40 million out of the entire securitization proceeds attributed to St. James to foreign bank accounts in the name of St. James and NH Financial, another Godfrey affiliate, which is reportedly a foreign registered company.

Godfrey?s companies got their money; however, the loans for four of his companies, totaling about $40 million, went into default in 2003. Now GOB is picking up the tab with Belizean taxpayer dollars, as was revealed in the last hearing.

Testifying before the Committee, Financial Secretary, Dr. Carla Barnett, said that GOB had taken over the first set of securitization transactions done in the Caribbean with the Royal Merchant Bank. The original borrowers still pay either to the SSB or the DFC, which should in turn pay GOB.

Barnett said that while the DFC has responsibility to pay GOB, she does not think DFC is paying.

Meanwhile, the blame has been set squarely in SSB?s lap: ?Everybody says the Social Security is responsible for not doing due diligence, for having taken these on, for not having ensured, and it is the Social Security to blame,? said Senator Hulse.

McMillan told the Senate Committee that he and Godfrey had discussed the ITL and the WCP mortgages and had decided that, given the concerns over possible conflict of interest, they could pass them through the SSB ?for convenience at many different levels.?

Troy Gabb, DFC?s current CEO, who was the first to testify before the Senate on Wednesday morning, said that he was not aware of changes in the projects. He contends that all the documents were authentic and he was not aware that the principal of St. James was also a director of DFC?that is, Mr. Godfrey?which the Senate Committee notes is in violation of warranty number 43 in the transaction documents.

Another witness was DFC?s Chief Operations Officer, Roberto Bautista, who served as a director of the DFC offshore subsidiary ? Belize Mortgage Company, and also worked as the General Manager of DFC before Gabb took over in October 2001.

Bautista told the Senate Special Select Committee that DFC fulfilled its responsibility where the securitization transactions were concerned. Some technical officers, he said, even worked day and night sometimes to ensure that everything was 100% correct.

He further told the Committee that he had only recently found out that the purpose of the loans for Intelco and Western Caribbean Properties had changed. He said that based on the information from the files, he had concluded that the projects in question were completed.

The lesson in this game of ring-a-roses is: Watch out for the thorns.

Dr. Barnett told the Senate Committee: ?I think the lesson in all of this is that we really have to be very careful in entering into these kinds of complex arrangements because we really need to know what we are doing and then follow through all the steps that need to be done to ensure that all the bases are covered.?