Black Immigrant Daily News

The Belize Tourism Board will have to pay close to 1 million dollars in damages following the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of Karen Bevans’ wrongful termination lawsuit; counter and ancillary claims filed by the BTB were dismissed. 

by Marco Lopez

BELIZE CITY, Wed. Sept. 14, 2022

The former Director of Tourism, Karen Bevans, will be collecting close to eight hundred thousand dollars from the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) after the issuance this week of a Supreme Court ruling in favor of her wrongful termination claim, which she brought against the board following her dismissal from the BTB in March 2021, just a few months after the current PUP administration entered office. Justice Geneviéve Chabot, who handed down the judgment, awarded Bevans $769,869.00 dollars – what was to be her remaining salary under her second contract of employment, which was signed 1 year and 8 months before the new administration came into power in November 2020. 

The BTB argued in court that this contract was invalid, since, according to them, it was signed without the resolution of the board of directors and the authorization of the Minister of Tourism – being executed instead under the former Chairman and Vice Chairman of the BTB. (Bevans’ attorney, Senior Counsel Dean Barrow, in fact told a local television station, “What the BTB was arguing was that this contract was not properly given … the Prime Minister had said the same thing, that Mrs. Bevans gave herself this contract, the board did not act properly as it were sanctioning the contract, the contract was therefore illegal …”). The BTB also contended that clause 7.1.1 in the agreement, which stipulated that Bevans would have been entitled to payment if she was subjected to a wrongful termination, was an unenforceable penalty, and it brought ancillary claims against former Tourism Minister, Manuel Heredia; the former chairman of the Board of the BTB, Einer Gomez; and former BTB vice-chairman, Glenford Eiley.  

The claim which was brought against those persons was dismissed by Justice Chabot. At the time of Bevans’ dismissal, the BTB had opted to give her an ex-gratia payment of one year’s salary as a settlement to end any and all future claims for loss of wages under the agreement. This proposal was not accepted by Bevans, who through her attorney, Senior Counsel Dean Barrow, sent a written rejection of the offer to the board, but Barrow noted that the money, about $180,000, was still sent to the claimant’s account.

“The BTB, in fact, filed a counterclaim against her; that arose because when they wrote her to tell her that she was being terminated, they said ‘we will pay you a year’,” Barrow explained. “They said this is in full pay and final settlement, you are being terminated, we will give you a year’s salary, and that’s it. She came to me; I wrote back to say, ‘we do not accept that’; when they sent her the letter talking about the year’s salary that they will give, it said we do this by way of ex-gratia payment,” Barrow said.

That payment, however, was conditional—requiring, specifically, that she agree to not pursue legal action to recover the remainder of the salary to which she would have been entitled if she had served the full term of the contract.

“We wrote back to say that’s nonsense. They still deposited that year’s salary in her account,” Barrow explained. The counterclaim to recover that one year of salary was thus dismissed.

The court, in addition to ruling in favor of Bevans and awarding damages and legal costs, which, according to her attorney amount to about $81,000, also dismissed the ancillary claim brought by the BTB against the former Tourism Minister, Manual Heredia; former Chairman of the Board of the BTB, Einer Gomez; and former BTB Vice-Chair, Glenford Eiley.   

The BTB had claimed that Minister Heredia breached his statutory duty by failing to approve the contract for Bevans’ second term as Director of the BTB. The court found, however, that the agreement had been approved by Heredia by phone. The judgment noted, “It is Mr. Heredia’s understanding that there was no requirement for his approval to be in writing. He instructed the Chairman of the Board to execute the Agreement, and once those instructions were issued, the Board had to follow those instructions, which it did.”

The court also rejected the BTB’s claim that clause 7.1.1 of the contract agreement was unenforceable, that it was “irrationally generous”, and that “no reasonable and rational contracting authority would have considered it”. “The Court rejects the notion that Clause 7.1.1 was either unjustified, disproportionate, not in the best interest of the BTB, excessively generous to the Claimant, or… unreasonable based on the fact that Clause 7.1.1 is a standard clause in BTB’s employment contracts, that the Agreement was negotiated at arm’s length, and that there is evidence that Clause 7.1.1 is justified on a commercial basis,” stated Chabot’s ruling.

When interviewed after the issuance of the ruling. Senior Counsel Dean Barrow, who was prime minister of the country when Bevans served as BTB Director, said that both current and past directors of the BTB have benefited from the inclusion in their employment contracts of such a clause guaranteeing payment in cases of wrongful termination. Barrow even made reference to a specific instance of this: “As you know at the time when the UDP was in office, Mr. Mahler [Hon. Anthony Mahler—current Tourism Minister who was the BTB’s Director of Finance at the time] was terminated early and he sued and the then BTB settled, because they accepted that the contract said what it did.”

Prime Minister Hon. John Briceño and RSV Ltd. were both earlier sued successfully in a defamation claim that was brought by Bevans in response to the Prime Minister’s description of her employment agreement as a “crony contract” during comments he made on Love FM and other national media in December 2020. Hon. Briceño had claimed that there was a plethora of compiled evidence that never made it to the courtroom. When he first learned of a possible lawsuit against him, Prime Minister Briceño had stated, “I don’t think she wants to go to court, because when we set up all the evidence of what has happened during her time, it’s not going to be a pretty picture.” Notably, neither Hon. Briceño nor RSV Limited had apologized as was requested by Bevans in a letter sent by her lawyer—which was noted by Justice Westmin James, who, in an August 2021 ruling, awarded Bevans $30,000 in aggravated damages and $60,000 in compensatory damages.  

“The Claimant contends that she is not a political appointee,” stated the judgment handed down today. Bevans’ contract was renewed in April 2019 and was to run until April 2024, before she was terminated in March 2021. In February of that year, while Bevans was still at the helm of the BTB, an investigation was launched to determine if pension funds were misappropriated. Minister Mahler had stated at the time that he believed that trustees used those funds to pay themselves at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Notably, the BTB, also while Bevans was BTB Director, parted ways with 50% percent of its staff during the first few months of the pandemic.

There has been no indication that the BTB will appeal the ruling, but the board’s attorney, Andrew Marshalleck, told local media this week that they are still considering what options are available to them and that he would be reviewing the court’s judgment before making a determination.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Officials have stressed that poultry and eggs are still safe for human consumption. To tackle the outbreak, BAHA has been controlling the movement of poultry and poultry products from affected farms.

by Khaila Gentle

BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Sept. 15, 2022

For the first time in almost seven years, an outbreak of Avian Influenza has been identified in the country—this time in the poultry population of a farm in the Blue Creek community. According to Dr. Miguel Depaz, Director of the Animal Health Department at the Belize Agricultural Health Authority (BAHA), that farm has been placed under quarantine, and further testing is being done at other farms in northwest Belize, with results expected to return anytime this week. There are already preliminary indications that the virus had been detected on one other farm—in Shipyard. When asked by 7News’ Jules Vasquez about the sense of urgency in ensuring containment of the virus at one farm, Depaz said, “It’s actually two farms. We have detected another farm. We sample another farm that was having some problems in Shipyard and that farm came out positive also.”

Depaz said on Wednesday that samples had been taken from the Blue Creek farm after it was observed that a number of chickens were dying. The samples were then sent to the University of Georgia in the United States, after which BAHA enacted its emergency response plan.

“As you know, Avian Influenza is the most serious poultry disease. And despite having said ‘poultry’, there is a potential for zoonosis, meaning that it also has the potential to be transmitted to humans,” he stated.

BAHA received confirmation that the samples had tested positive for Bird Flu on September 9. The strain of the disease identified was subtype H5.

Avian Influenza viruses can be categorized into two groups—highly pathogenic and low pathogenic. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), most H5 viruses are low pathogenic viruses. Occasionally, however, some highly pathogenic H5 viruses—which have the potential to severely impact poultry industries—have been detected.

“All H5 and all H7 are of concern [to BAHA] and more so to the poultry industry because it is known that it is those subtypes that really affect poultry,” said DePaz.

At the moment, the pathogenicity of the strain identified in Blue Creek has not yet been confirmed by BAHA. Further pending studies will reveal the virus’s exact genetic makeup. Depaz did note, however, that so far 1,000 birds have died. “From 25,500 birds they are down to about 24,000, so [they] have lost over one thousand birds. The pathogenicity we don’t know what it is, despite the mortality only being 4% maybe. That is already alarming, regardless of what anybody says. You don’t want to lose a thousand birds.”

The source of the outbreak is believed to be a batch of imported hatching eggs, from which farms in both Blue Creek and Shipyard received stock. This, however, will also be confirmed with further testing. “Now we can suspect that the origin might be the US, but when we do the genetic sequence of the virus we will know,” Depaz said.

BAHA has already begun to implement its mitigation strategies. A Cabinet brief released on Thursday noted that the government had approved the measures recommended by the organization for controlling and eradicating the disease. Those measures include the depopulation of birds from affected farms, checkpoints to control the movement of poultry and poultry products from affected farms, and increased surveillance in communities where there is a presence of the disease.

Depopulation at the Blue Creek farm—which houses just under 25,000 birds—is expected to take place this week, if it is found that the outbreak is severe, and, according to DePaz, it will be done humanely.

In Thursday’s brief, Cabinet also noted that the Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Jose Abelardo Mai, had reassured them that there is no shortage of poultry products in Belize at this time. Hon. Mai, however, did state on Wednesday that there will be no movement of live birds and eggs until adequate testing of farms has been completed.

“We cannot slaughter animals for human consumption if they are not tested,” he said.

While depopulation will have an impact on the poultry industry, it may be the most effective measure for mitigating the spread of the disease. And, according to Armando Cowo, the President of the Belize Poultry Association, there would be no immediate impact on consumers.

Cowo and DePaz have stressed that poultry meat is still safe for consumption. Under BAHA’s emergency response plan, all birds entering the slaughterhouse must test negative and layer birds must test negative before their eggs can be commercialized. As a result, processed poultry is still being allowed to move out of the country. The movement of live birds out of farms, however, is being controlled.

Cowo, while commending BAHA for its immediate response to the suspected virus, has said that he believes the health authority may be acting too quickly in wanting to begin depopulation. He added that, following scientific protocol, BAHA should wait until it receives the final confirmation from its reference labs in the US. The Poultry Association, however, remains cognizant of the fact that Avian Influenza demands quick action.

BAHA is hoping to avoid a complete lockdown of the communities that produce the majority of the country’s poultry, as that would prove devastating.

“You need to allow activities but without compromising the situation—in other words, if I will allow birds to move out of Blue Creek, I need to test them. I need to ensure that they are negative. So, that is what we need to do. A total lockdown would kill the industry up north,” DePaz said.

In December 2015, an outbreak of Avian Influenza originating in Spanish Lookout village led to the culling of some 60,000 birds and approximately $6 million in losses for the poultry industry after a total of seven months.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The tropical storm warning in effect for Antigua and Barbuda has been lifted.

Director of the Antigua and Barbuda Meteorological Services, Dale Destin says it was lifted at 5am Saturday morning after having been in place since Thursday.

He says the decision comes as Tropical Storm Fiona continues to move away from the country. Winds which have been howling since Friday afternoon, have subsided and are no longer storm-force.

However, Destin says more rains are in the forecast, albeit less than what had originally been forecast.

The downward revision of the rainfall forecast is the result of some of the convection associated with Fiona heading south of the center of circulation, taking it away from Antigua.

The lifting of the tropical storm warning is only for Antigua and Barbuda at this point; more warnings will be discontinued within hours.

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After a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual Blackheart Football Tournament will kick off again on September 24, 2022.

That’s the word from Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Blackheart Productions, David “Shakes” Christopher.

Previously scheduled for a September 17 start, the tournament opener had to be postponed by a week.

“The festival will not be held this weekend due to logistical reasons,” said Christopher.

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The Saint Lucia Football Association needed some time to wrap up a few tournaments before the Blackheart tournament began. Also, many of the referees have a major training programme on Saturday (September 24), so they will not be available.”

Christopher thanked everyone who came out to support the Big 8 Tournament held at theDennery Playing Field from September 3-4, from which Dennery emerged champions afterdefeating Vieux Fort South 2-0 in the final.

He noted that this year’s tournament is shaping up nicely, thanks to some good sponsors coming on board.

“We really want to thank the Saint Lucia Football Association, Insomnia Bar and Grill,Guinness, Blue Waters (distributors of Stamina Energy), National Lotteries Authority, Ministry of Youth Development and Sports, Flow, MBC/Real FM, DBS, Vybe Radio, Soufriere Regional Development Foundation, Sports Saint Lucia Inc. and Button Up,” he said.

Christopher said that, like in previous years, the tournament continues to create linkages for people to benefit from the economic spinoffs.

“I think it was very successful Big 8 Tournament,” he said. “I can’t emphasize enough howmuch we appreciate the economic spin-off from what transpired in Dennery over the two days of the tournament. We hope it can transcend across the island where our matches will be played for the tournament proper.”

The playoffs will now take place on Saturday and Sunday (September 24 and 25) at LaRessource Playing Field in Mabouya Valley.

The official press launch will be held subsequently where the draw will be done. On October 1, 2 and 3, the tournament proper kicks off in Mabouya Valley.

Matches will be held at the Soufriere Mini Stadium on Wednesday, October 5, which will be the final day of the first round, where the Soufriere team will be playing at home. On Saturday, the first set of games in the second round will be played at the same venue before heading back to Mabouya on Sunday, October 9, for the second day of the second round.

On Saturday, October 15, the semifinals will be held at the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground.

After a week’s break, the final will be held on Saturday, October 22, at the same venue.

“We’re hoping that people come out in large numbers and bring their best behaviour so that we can really showcase our footballers and get back on track in a big way,” Christopher stated.

Vieux Fort South are the defending champions of the Blackheart Football Tournament, having won the competition in 2019 when it was last hosted before the COVID-19 pandemic forced a two-year hiatus.

In fact, Vieux Fort South have won the tournament for four consecutive years, beginning in 2016.

With the return of Blackheart Football, many teams across the island are already gearing up to lift the championship, including past winners.

Aside from promoting sports, Christopher said the tournament also helps build camaraderie among the youth.

“We’ve always promoted non-violence,” he said. “If you checked many of our slogans fromback in the day, you would recognize that, including ‘Stop the Violence’, and, ‘Football is life’, and ‘Shoot goals, not bullets’. We’ll continue to do so because whenever Blackheart Football comes around, if you checked the statistics, the crime rate always goes down. When football is around, our young men don’t have time to pick up guns.”

A spate of violent crimes across the island, including in Vieux Fort, has resulted in the PhilipMarcellin Ground not included in this year’s venue line-up.

While he described that decision as unfortunate, Christopher said it was a hard decision to make.

“It’s sad that due to the crime level that’s now in the south we cannot host matches there this year,” said the Blackheart Productions CEO. “But that decision was made long before, when things were more hectic there. In fact, the authorities were making certain demands. So we had already gone ahead and planned on not including Vieux Fort as a match venue. But I want to say to Vieux Fort that all is not lost. We’ve had matches there for many years and nothing unfortunate happened there.”

He added: “To those who were offended by the statement we made where we said the gunshots in Vieux Fort makes it seems like a little Ukraine, we want to apologize for that. We didn’t mean to stigmatize Vieux Fort. We wish Vieux Fortians and their teams the best in the tournament and in the future.”

SOURCE: Blackheart Football Tournament.  Headline photo: Stock image.

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