Respect to the Belize Times editorial of May 25, issue # 4595. I reserve my yay, or my nay, but thanks for keeping the whip on the red tiger’s tail. Please, there is a small part of the piece we have to talk about. The editorialist wrote: Prime Minister Barrow…with his powerful mandate of February 7th prefers to talk big – the language is now windfall tax, nationalization…expropriation. Braa, forget the true big talk…nationalization, and expropriation, and let’s talk about humble windfall tax.
When oil prices started to rise a few years ago, some economists suggested that it was a blip, that same as it did in the nineteen seventies, oil would come back down to earth. These economists failed to do their homework, weren’t very smart, or were liars. At the same time these economists were forecasting a return to glory days, a serious set of economists saw the growing economies in China and India increasing the demand for oil, and correctly forecasted up, up for oil prices.
Would the PUP concede that it was a big failure on their part not to seriously factor in the shooting price of oil when they set the formula? Of the moment, does the PUP support the windfall tax? I read your pages every week and will be looking to see how you tell the truth.
The world when the PUP signed the BNE oil contract is different from the world today. The oil business has its arguments. Greater profits for them mean more money to explore for more oil. That game can go on until di oil done. It is great for the world to find more oil, but we need our share now. The rape of our resource is so excessive the BNE can’t even talk. Dehn mouth full.
Ambassador Murphy’s excellent little book
Former Ambassador to the United States and the OAS, Mr. James S. Murphy, has put together a booklet a little over 50 pages long containing everything every Belizean needs to know about the Guatemala problem. It is a refresher for those who are fully enlightened on the critical issue. It is a must read for those who have never studied the Guatemalan claim to our country.
The booklet is very easy to read. Yes, the information is set up so everyone, from primary school to UB, can get the full sense of the matter.
With the powers that be calling for Belize to go to the International Court of Justice with the case, every Belizean will be called upon to decide in a referendum on the way forward. Sleep wid yu own eye. A copy of Belize @ 27: Still Seeking a Settlement with Guatemala, by James S. Murphy, should be in every Belizean home.
Underground rights
As far as I know, government sale of land does not include underground rights. All farm owners know that Maya temples found on their land are the property of the state. The sale price of land is based on the value in respect to location, and to an extent, use potential, riverbank land going for the highest sale price, for example. If the government were to sell land considering unseen potential, people of lower means would not be able to purchase land.
The government and people own the rights under the land. But property owners should have some say in how minerals and oil are extracted from “their” properties. Also, there should be tidy compensation for any disruption, inconvenience caused by mining on people’s properties.
New Science
A little while back (was it last year?) new science fretted that its rocket would fail to shoot down a dead satellite free falling to earth a few miles away. On Sunday, new science landed a computer on Mars…140 MILLION miles away. Hey, you have to like the new science. You really have to love the new science. But these numbers man, wow! I have no way of proving that the sun is 93 million miles away. I KNOW it is a lot closer than that. But I am keeping it to myself. Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a…
Anyway, I enjoy the new science…except for the crazy fringes. Hybridized embryo? Watch out, our granddaughters will be going to bed with monkey man, and minotaurs. Hey, we have the rocks. Let’s build a giant wall around Belize. Let’s keep our country safe from these foreign plastic lunatics.
Victim of poor advice?
It’s hard, nigh impossible to follow all the television and radio stations, so those of us who are interested in the news from all its sides make sure to read the newspapers.
I submit that the general public knew naught about what was going on with respect to complaints around the Putt Putt Bar.
In the eyes of the public, Putt Putt was heroic for hosting the abandoned, struggling artists of Belize. Now, we were aware that attempts were made to steal away historic MCC (the Belize City Black Hills), for the purpose of making it into a parking lot for Princess Hotel. Talk about falling from grace!
To hear that prized public property at the Barracks had been sold for the paltry sum of $20,000 raised eyebrows. Yap, the non-affiliated were as irate as the UDP about this deal. Pouring insult on injury, we learned that Mr. Joe Coye, man of the people, was the architect of the transaction. What!
I am following Mr. Tillett’s explanations on the Putt Putt matter in his column Strictly Personal in the Belize Times. On May 18, Mr. Tillett wrote that Mr. Coye, became frustrated and exasperated by the many petitions of neighborhood residents (Putt Putt too rowdy)…so he… recommended that a PORTION of the property be LEASED to Alfred Shackron, so he could erect a building to house a craft center and as an outlet for those crafts, and that the rest of the property be vested in the National Sports Council.
But, his efforts to close the Putt Putt Club were stymied by the UDP crowd (City Council and Licensing Board). Mr. Tillett wrote that to this day Joe Coye still does not know who valued the property, what part of it was sold to Shackron, for how much, or when it was sold…
I do not know of Mr. Coye’s guilt or innocence in respect to Mr. Shackron’s claims. The question on my mind is, how could he misgauge public response so. I mean, it wasn’t until after the fall out, that story started to come out. The buck stops with the leader, but it speaks poorly to his political committee. Did they think that Mr. Coye’s forty years of service to this nation made him immune from the fallout of a sour deal?