One of the first responses to the news this week, first broadcast by Belize’s number one investigative journalist, Channel 7 News’s Jules Vasquez, that our government had paid a rather exorbitant sum for a parcel of land in Belmopan, was that our leaders had done us wrong. Belizeans don’t trust their governments. Prior to the 2020 general election, our country’s most powerful unions took to the streets demanding “UNCAC”, anti-corruption laws to put a halt to our leaders’ loose handling of the people’s monies. Today we are as far from such laws as we were in 2020.
Because of history, the many times we have been burned, we were provoked to thoughts that the land purchase might not be entirely above board. But Belizeans are also aware of the incredibly high price of land in certain areas, Belmopan being one of those. For now, all we are certain of is that land in certain parts of our country is worth more than gold, and land speculators have our government over a barrel whenever it needs a parcel for a public purpose. This week the government said it needed the parcel for a hospital.
In March last year, the GoB announced that it had negotiated a sizable loan at extremely favorable interest rates for the purpose of constructing a hospital on land owned by the University of Belize. The GoB Press Office said the US$45-million development loan would be used to construct a “new state-of-the-art medical facility which will provide both secondary and tertiary healthcare services”, that the facility would “serve a dual role as the university hospital for the University of Belize’s Faculty of Medicine, providing an enabling environment to foster the growth and development of future medical professionals”, and its location, in Belmopan, would “not only serve residents of western and southern Belize, but will also provide an alternative for the evacuation of patients from the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital during natural disasters, should the need arise.”
The Amandala said “PM John Briceño explained that the loan is being borrowed at a 2% per annum fixed interest rate. The term of the loan is 20 years – a 5-year grace period starting at the effective date of the loan, and a 15-year repayment period.”
This week’s Tuesday Amandala said it had learned that the change in location of the proposed hospital “came about after the Health Ministry considered that the land set aside on the sprawling 60-acre University of Belize property was not centrally located to more efficiently serve as a nexus for patients from the south and west of the country.”
As far as we know, no one has questioned the GoB’s logic that UB wasn’t the best location for the hospital, thus the need to correct its error. The question on everyone’s mind is the price tag, first reported as a hefty $6 million. It is a giant win, the jackpot for a land owner who speculated that in time the land would increase in value and deliver a tidy return on investment. But in their wildest dreams they could not have envisioned such a windfall! Land in Belmopan is pricey, but it is not on the coast, the area where raw property in Belize or anywhere is priciest. Land is what people are willing to pay for it, but to sell that parcel to a private owner for $6 million, they would have needed to find someone with money that can sit for decades.
The Amandala said the property owners’ valuation of the property exceeded the government’s valuation by $2 million. The ultra-generous Belmopan City Council, like the GoB, reportedly taxed the property based on a value less than $200,000. So, all along the owners of the property have been profiting, have been encouraged with their land holding. When the GoB recognized that the parcel was ideal for an extremely noble public purpose, a hospital, the property owners turned the screws on the government and people of Belize.
A recent GoB press release said that we paid $6.9 million for the 15-acre property, and that figure is “much less than what the landowners were requesting, those landowners being Annie Zhu and Kenny Zheng.”
Only in the country with a progressive land tax system can virtue be found in land speculation. We, obviously, are not in that category. The Belmopan City Council should explain why the land was taxed on a value 20 times less than what the government reportedly appraised it for. Rick Rybeck, in the story, “How to Kill Land Speculation”, said it “creates nothing of value.” Rybeck said land speculation “constrains the availability of developable land, thereby inflating land prices. Inflated land prices drive residents and businesses away from the most valuable and productive land toward cheaper, but more remote and less productive, sites. This creates sprawl, which harms the environment, requires costly infrastructure duplication, and reduces economic productivity. Speculation also creates land price bubbles which impair the economy.”
Colonialism, when our country wasn’t run in the best interests of those who live here, and sometimes ill-advised decisions by our leaders since we took the reins, have exposed us to people with the most mercenary of intentions. People with zero interest to develop the land have inherited it from our colonial past or acquire it for a pittance. Then they sit on it, waiting for a massive payday.
The Land Acquisition (Public Purposes) Act gives the government the right to acquire land. The land owner/speculator has the right to demand the market value. GoB realized that this hospital, in which it is making a huge investment, was wrongly located, and rightly set about finding a better site. And the massive price GoB is paying naturally has caused eyebrows to go up from the Hondo to the Sarstoon.
In its 2020-2025 Manifesto, the UDP, which held the reins of government between 2008 and 2020, said if returned to office it would address a land valuation system that works to give big money to landowners when government needs to acquire parcels in the public interest. But the people would be terrified of a government with such powers if government can continue conducting our business with so little transparency.
The GoB might have considered $6 million ($6.9 million) a paltry sum, and it is, when compared to the sums we have borrowed to kickstart our economy since the Covid-19 pandemic. There are other areas in the proximity of Belmopan that could have been considered for the construction of this new hospital. The cattle-holding pen of the Belize Livestock Producers Association could easily be relocated, with the land handed over for the new hospital. If that land is privately owned by cattle producers, they couldn’t be as mercenary as the owners of the parcel we bought. Maybe the north section of the 60-acre Belmopan Show Grounds could have been acquired.
The Belizean people have every right to be suspicious. And our leaders know that we are skeptical of all their dealings, because in the past they have too often been invested in graft, and kickbacks to the party. We don’t know if our leaders engaged in unclean activities with this transaction. What we are certain of is that frequently our country needs to acquire properties for the betterment of the people, and we are in the grip of land speculators who are totally mercenary.