Private sector Senator Godwin Hulse has called for a probe by the Public Accounts Committee into a special report of the Auditor General tabled at Tuesday’s Senate meeting, signaling that over BZ$7 million—nearly a third of the Venezuelan housing grant spent in the run-up to the 2008 general elections—was “unaccounted for.”
Speaking at Tuesday’s very brief meeting of the Senate, Hulse explained that according to the special audit on the first BZ$20 million tranche of the grant from Venezuela, received under the former administration of Said Musa, the BZ$2 million that had been given to build a modern track for Belizean athletes had instead been earmarked for an indoor sporting facility.
A total of BZ$17.9 million was reportedly streamed into the home improvement and housing project for 2007/2008; however, the Auditor General’s report indicates that BZ$7,352,169.58 was unaccounted for, Hulse said in the Senate.
“I want to call, Madam President, through your honorable office on the honorable Prime Minister as leader of government business in the House, to request the Speaker of the House, to direct the Public Accounts Committee, which is that committee set up that should immediately concur and converse with the Auditor General and other relevant officers, to initiate an investigation into this matter,” Hulse appealed.
Hulse noted that under the Finance and Audit Act (Sections 5.1 and 5.4) the executive cannot spend more than 10% of a line item in the budget without going to the Legislature for approval.
The maximum that could have been spent without the approval is BZ$500,000.
“The system completely fell down…” Senator Hulse commented. “There is an urgent need to reconcile these differences,” as signaled by the Auditor General’s report, he said.
The report also points to a BZ$2 million payment made as mobilization fee to Bella Vista Development Co. and Lopez Equipment Co. Ltd.
“This was mobilization fee for indoor sporting complex, none of which we have…the contract was terminated,” Senator Hulse said.
Opposition Senator Hector Silva agreed with Hulse, and questioned exactly how the Venezuelan grant for housing for the poor really benefited the poor.
“On the matter of Marion Jones, this is something big—[BZ]$2 million to mobilize what? Equipment?” Silva also questioned. “I see a little toilet somewhere around there; it’s a booth. But I saw that from 50 years ago there. But I see the picture is there, if you notice, on page 102…and some cement blocks, if that is mobilization. I see another [picture] there that looks like a pond.”
Silva questioned whether the Senate could do its own probe into the use of the Venezuelan grant.
Amandala readers will recall that back in March 2008 the Government had cancelled the contract given to the Bella Vista group and Lopez Equipment, and the contractors sued in the Supreme Court.
Javier Berber Garcia, owner of the Bella Vista Development Co., told Amandala Tuesday evening that he does not wish to comment, as he is awaiting the court’s ruling.
Garcia directed us to his attorney, Godfrey Smith, minister of government under the Musa administration, who advised that the case was fully heard just last week, from June 16 to 19, before Justice Oswell Legall.
According to Smith, the issue of the BZ$2 million mobilization fee came up in court, and they stipulated for the court exactly how the mobilization fee was to be used.
“It was not contradicted by the government,” said Smith.
That ruling is expected in about a month, he advised Amandala.
The reported value of the Marion Jones Sports Complex contract was BZ$16.9 million. Last October, Government issued a release saying that Cabinet had decided to defer plans to construct the Belize Sports Centre at the Marion Jones Sports Complex “in view of the large shortfall in available funding for the project.”
Last April, the Senate had approved a US$5 million from the Export Import Bank of the Republic of China on Taiwan for the same project.
The other US$10 million from Venezuela had been deposited into “another account.” As we have previously reported, the Musa administration diverted that portion of the Venezuelan grant to the Belize Bank to pay off the debt of Universal Health Services, now the Belize Health Care Partners.
(Government has since reclaimed those funds, though the dispute over the payments is still being litigated.)