Belisle Fires Back Amid Multi-Million Dollar Land Claims

Tonight, the man raising questions about land deals is now answering some of his own. Former Belmopan Mayor Khalid Belisle is pushing back against claims that millions were lost under his administration, after an audit flagged city land sales below market value. Current Mayor Pablo Cawich points to those findings as cause for concern, but Belisle argues the numbers miss the bigger picture, saying the valuations ignore the city’s role in driving development and expanding access to land. He insists the so-called losses are based more on assumptions than evidence of wrongdoing.

 

Khalid Belisle, UDP Caretaker, Belmopan

“The audit reports that the commission came back with findings of land and assets being distributed and disposed of by the council during my administration at, quote unquote, “undervalued prices.” My question is by what metric? Are we applying private market valuation and pricing to what is a public body or administration? I can share with you for the benefit of viewers who wouldn’t know our quasi-government body, sister body here in Belmopan, RECONDEV, distributed 2,000 lots in the J&W subdivision for 7, 9, and $13,000. When it was that we came upon the remarkable gift of getting back 100 acres of land from the University of Belize and we started what is now the InnovaBel project. After reaching out to the utility companies and the road con- construction companies and the surveyors, of course, we determined that we would be able to offer parcels of land in that subdivision for roughly $20,000. And so it is not that we were always strictly adhering or to, to what was pr- what were prevailing mar- private market prices at the time. And Shane, you can see quite easily how in retrospect if you’re going to go back and say that you sold a parcel of land for $50,000 but we believe that it was actually worth $200,000, a difference of 150 or 300%. You can easily start racking up some huge numbers in terms of, quote-unquote, “potential losses,” as I  noticed the finance director referred to them.”

 

Belisle says these allegations have been thrown at him for years and concedes he should have been more forthright in responding and explaining the decisions behind the land transactions.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

Watch the full newscast here: