BE­LOM­PAN, Be­lize-The main op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Unit­ed Par­ty (PUP) says it backs the de­ci­sion of the Dean Bar­row gov­ern­ment to seek to rene­go­ti­ate the re­struc­tur­ing of its US$544 mil­lion su­per­bond with in­vestors. "We have not been briefed by the gov­ern­ment on this mat­ter. They (gov­ern­ment) have not shared with us any of­fi­cial in­for­ma­tion. You know but hav­ing said that, our po­si­tion we be­lieve, as a re­spon­si­ble op­po­si­tion is to act in good faith on this is­sue," said PUP leader Fran­cis Fon­se­ca. "We be­lieve it is an ab­solute­ly crit­i­cal is­sue for Be­lize's de­vel­op­ment and Be­lize's fu­ture. "So our po­si­tion is very clear, we want the bond rene­go­ti­a­tion ex­er­cise to suc­ceed and what­ev­er we can do as an op­po­si­tion to as­sist we are pre­pared to do," he added. A del­e­ga­tion head­ed by Am­bas­sador Mark Es­pat has al­ready vis­it­ed Wash­ing­ton for talks with the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) on the is­sue and Gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank, Glen Ysaguirre said the first face to face meet­ing with the bond­hold­ers is ex­pect­ed to be con­vened next month and a de­fin­i­tive of­fer should be on the ta­ble by the mid­dle or end­ing of Sep­tem­ber.

Be­lize is cur­rent­ly try­ing to rene­go­ti­ate its for­eign debts with cred­i­tors and has of­fered them a three-pronged pay­ment plan, which in­volves an ex­ten­sion of the pay­ment pe­ri­od on the su­per bond well be­yond the 2029 ma­tu­ri­ty date. The Bar­row ad­min­is­tra­tion said that the Step-Up Bond due 2029 con­tains a col­lec­tive ac­tion clause that per­mits the hold­ers of 75 per cent of the bonds ei­ther to amend the terms or ap­prove a com­plete ex­change of that bond for a new in­stru­ment or in­stru­ments. "The Gov­ern­ment is cur­rent­ly dis­in­clined to close a re­struc­tur­ing trans­ac­tion un­less that 75 per cent thresh­old has been reached."

The gov­ern­ment ac­knowl­edged ear­li­er this month that the in­ter­est pay­ment of US$46 mil­lion on Be­lize's ac­cu­mu­lat­ed US$544 mil­lion for­eign debt was due on Au­gust 20 and that the pay­ment would have been the coun­try's first un­der the in­ter­est pay­ment plan on the US dol­lar Step Up Bonds due in 2029. The gov­ern­ment said the rea­son for the non-pay­ment is that the stepped up pay­ments rep­re­sent al­most one half of the coun­try's to­tal pub­lic in­debt­ed­ness un­der the new stepped up 8.5 per cent rate. Fon­se­ca said he still be­lieved that "on an is­sue of this lev­el of na­tion­al im­por­tance, its ab­solute­ly im­por­tant for all of us to be talk­ing from the same hymn sheet. "It is not about Fran­cis Fon­se­ca hav­ing all the in­for­ma­tion. It is about me be­ing able to share the in­for­ma­tion with the sup­port­ers and mem­bers of the Peo­ple's Unit­ed Par­ty, who as I said, rep­re­sents half of the coun­try, who need to be prop­er­ly ed­u­cat­ed and in­formed on the facts," he said. (CMC)