BELIZE CITY, Mon. Nov. 2, 2020– It has been roughly six weeks since Nestor Vasquez, Sr., came under scrutiny and resigned from his post as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Belize Telemedia Limited due to a scandal over his corporate credit card use and granting of inflated contracts to favoured entities.
The board had assured the public that an investigation was ongoing and an audit was being done into Mr. Vasquez’s corporate spending; however, little has been said about the matter since his resignation in September.
After the scandal went public, the People’s United Party had demanded that Vasquez “be removed immediately from all senior positions in which he represents the UDP, and that an independent and impartial investigation be done with a view to pursue criminal action”.
Their demand, with respect to the investigation, it seems, has fallen on deaf ears. As a result, Leader of the Opposition, Hon. John Briceño, wrote Prime Minister Dean Barrow. The letter, dated October 30, 2020, says:
“To date, we know that Mr. Vasquez racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in charges for personal expenses on the Telemedia corporate card. It is also known that a bloated contract was contrived and awarded to Tropical Vision Limited, a company owned by Mr. Vasquez, to purport to settle a portion of the debt owed by Mr. Vasquez to Telemedia.
“However, some six weeks have passed, and no disclosure has been made of the result of the audit.”
The letter goes further to suggest that in keeping the findings of the audit secret, BTL’s board, the oversight of which is a direct responsibility of Prime Minister Barrow in his capacity as Minister of Public Utilities, is attempting to cover up Vasquez’s “corporate corruption”.
Briceño then requested that within three days, the PM makes public the following information: the final audit report of auditors PKF; the total amount charged by Mr. Vasquez on BTL’s corporate card; a copy of the bloated contract awarded to Tropical Vision Limited, and whether or not it was approved by the Board; and whether the Board has sued Mr. Vasquez and/or reported the matter to the Belize Police Department.
Further, Briceño also inquired about BTL’s apparent financial straits, which resulted in an alleged emergency increase in its overdraft. As a result, the PUP leader wants to know whether the Government of Belize has received its dividends from BTL for the past few years and if so, how much was received by the GOB and when did they receive the said amounts.
During an interview, Hon. Briceño stated that he has not received any response from the Office of the Prime Minister or the Board of Trustees of BTL.
Briceño said that if the People’s Unity Party is elected, they would investigate the matter, and he pledged, “we will seek further charges if it comes out that anything illegal was being done.”
We were unable to reach a representative from BTL via telephone for comment.