KREM Radio’s lawyers and business consultants believe that the KREM vs Sagis Investments matter should now be taken to the highest court available, which is the Privy Council in Great Britain. (There are KREM business consultants who have dissenting opinions. KREM won in Supreme Court, and Sagis won in the Court of Appeal.)
On Partridge Street, we feel that this has been a difficult case so far for the masses of the Belizean people to understand. (In deference to our lawyers, we could not discuss certain things publicly.) In fact, we believe that two judges in the Court of Appeal missed the boat themselves, which is why Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh’s ruling in favor of KREM was overturned last month by a 2-1 decision in the Belize Court of Appeal.
Justice Conteh’s wisdom perhaps lay in his understanding that the business and legal transaction between KREM and Sagis was really more of a political transaction involving Market Square and Partridge Street, a political transaction facilitated by then PUP Deputy Leader Said Musa. At the time, the management of KREM Radio may have believed that Musa was acting for and on behalf of KREM, but Mr. Musa, it became glaringly apparent in 2007, had already transferred his loyalty to Lord Michael Ashcroft by June of 1994.
One of the weaknesses in the Sagis case in the Supreme Court was their inability to, or their decision not to, produce then Prime Minister Said Musa as a material witness, which he would have been – very material. Mr. Musa was at the very center of the transaction. He would have been a witness friendly to Sagis, but Sagis did not call him. And Sagis lost in Supreme Court.
There were two elements to the June 1994 transaction. The first was a loan for $75,000, to KREM Radio Ltd. from Belize Bank, the KREM management having concluded that a new radio transmitter was a necessity. The second element of the transaction was the loan source’s demand that a shadowy offshore company by the name of Sagis Investments be allowed to purchase 10 percent of the shares held by KREM board chairman Evan X Hyde, as a condition of the $75,000 loan.
It should be noted, for the record, that Evan X Hyde was not a member of the KREM management which negotiated the transaction. The contract, with its two elements, was presented to him for signature by the KREM management, which believed in the loyalty of Mr. Musa. The Sagis mystery set off warning bells in Evan X Hyde’s head, but the contract was a fait accompli except for his chairman’s signature, which he duly affixed.
You know now that Ashcroft, Market Square, BTL, Belize Bank and Sagis are all the same thing. The chances were that the KREM Radio directors would have refused the Lord’s participation in the radio station had they known who was Sagis. Lord Ashcroft did not appear to require the Sagis 10 percent in KREM until the year 2007, when KREM Radio had become very powerful and was commenting negatively on the Musa government and its questionable dealings with the Belize Bank and BTL. Apparently the Ashcroft people did not even know, until 2007, that the 10 percent Sagis deal with KREM had not been completed. Our conclusion has to be that, from 1994 until 2007, KREM Radio was not considered a deadly enemy by Mr. Musa and Market Square.
Kremandala paid off the $75,000 Belize Bank loan by having Amandala, the leading newspaper in Belize, run advertisements for the bank and other Ashcroft companies over a period of several years. Belize Bank executives knew that the loan was thus repaid, but it suited them to create a major scandal in 2007, about the Belize Bank’s being owed $262,000,000 by Kremandala!
Now, the matter of the $25,000 for the Sagis 10 percent. In 1994, Evan X Hyde signed transfer documents for the shares, the $25,000 was deposited in Belize Bank by the KREM management, and life continued on Partridge Street. 1994 was a year when Evan X Hyde was involved, almost 24/7, with the young Kremandala Raiders. Basketball was a new investment, and by 1994 the semi-pro league was in trouble, because of the damage done to the Civic Center by PUP cronies and because of UDP hostility.
No one at Kremandala intended to rip off Ashcroft/Sagis. History shows that you can only “rip off” a man like the Lord if it is a case of his wishing for you to do so. The Sagis/KREM matter was a case of a deal which was not completed, fortunately for KREM. The deal was not completed because the Ashcroft people had bigger fish to fry at the time, and Kremandala was considered, if not a friend, then definitely not an enemy.
Sagis took the case to court 13 years after the fact, and when Justice Conteh ruled that KREM should return their $25,000, with 13 years of interest, they refused that. Sagis, Shylock-like, insisted on 10 percent of KREM, which they intend to use to destabilize the station. Justice Conteh’s ruling, and Market Square’s reaction, exposed the malice of Lord Ashcroft. That is a development which has triggered growing public sympathy and support for KREM.
Mr. Ashcroft is a rich man who likes to take Belizeans “mek pappyshow.” In the aftermath of his Court of Appeal victory last month, he had his Channel 5 television station announce that Sagis will transfer its 10 percent KREM shares to the Heyward Trust, which the Lord also runs and controls. Some of the KREM people are saying, however, “Not so fast, big man, not so fast!”
KREM is down, but not out. We believe that if the people of Belize understand what happened in 1994, and the significance for 2007, they will give more support to KREM Radio. In this editorial, we have tried to explain what happened between KREM and so-called Sagis. If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail us at Amandala Press or KREM Radio.