It hardly took a week before accredited and respected journalist, Janelle Chanona, resigned from Great Belize Productions, the company that owns Channel 5. Of course the prior owner, Mr. Stewart Krohn, “promised” that there would be no interference with news content by the new owners. Yeah, and my big male 20-pound domestic cat will run out into the bush and challenge a full grown jaguar for territorial supremacy!
I have already made it clear that Channel 5 (Channel 58 on CBC cable), has been deleted from my TV. The only way I will watch it again is if I’m looking for specific content or omission of content to prove a point.
There is a serious upside to the Channel 5 mess. Janelle Chanona is now freelancing for Amandala! Kremandala is getting some of the best, most talented and fearless citizens in Belize. Russell Vellos, Adele Ramos, Kalilah Enriquez, Clinton Uh Luna and Ya Ya Marin-Coleman have been there for some time. Now Janelle Chanona is part of Kremandala too.
The attempts by Market Square to take over the media have created a situation where serious correspondents, writers, journalists and on-air personalities are doing their thing under one roof. This certainly wasn’t Market Square’s intention, but even those with what appears to be unlimited financial resources are not guaranteed the results they desire.
So the rejuvenated PUC is exposing some of the tricks BEL has been playing on the public. It appears that BEL has been charging consumers twice for a transmission line from BECOL to BEL! The figures appear to be almost $15 million, along with $14 million in accrued interest! The PUC has ordered BEL to “make corrections” on transactions going as far back as 2005! It wouldn’t be out of line to suspect that the more BEL’s accounts are reviewed, the more shenanigans will surface!
A very disturbing article appeared in the July 2nd Amandala. Written by Adele Ramos, it covered the arguments in the Supreme Court over proposed changes to the Constitution that would affect the fundamental rights and freedoms of Belizeans. The law now in effect requires the Prime Minister to submit any such changes to a referendum before they can become law, and government is trying to circumvent the current law by removing that right to a referendum even though it is current law; in effect putting the cart before the horse!
It is worth noting that the proposed changes to the Constitution allowing for preventive detention have not been pulled from the new law, and Government is attempting to cancel any property rights a person might have if oil or any other minerals are found on privately owned land, and what’s more, to cancel those rights retroactively.
There are a lot of things I like about the new government, but this is not one of them! Preventive detention is scary stuff, as I have noted in a number of previous articles. If it becomes law, it will not only be used against gangsters. It will be used against political opposition and it will give crooked cops, which we have a whole lot of, a fearsome weapon to use for shakedowns and private vendettas.
Taking away a citizen’s property without any compensation whatsoever is not cool. If we want something to add to the bad reputation we already have gotten with legit foreign investors over the years, this will do nicely, thank you very much! The problem we have with foreign investors is that the previous government attracted con artists and exploiters, not legitimate investors.
Retroactive legislation, or ex post facto laws, as they are often called, opens up Pandora’s Box. Let’s just hope that the safeguards that appear to be there in the present Constitution hold up. If they don’t, look out!