Belizeans thought the attendant circus provided by the Commission of Inquiry into the handling of our assets by the past UDP government was entirely free entertainment. We weren’t told by the present government that down the road there was a bill, a huge one, that we would have to pay. Last week we learned that Hugo Patt, a deputy prime minister in the previous government, had won $145,000 in a suit he brought against the government. According to a story in the Amandala, the court found that Patt had not been “allowed to put forth a defense against the claims against him prior to the release of the commission’s findings, which was a breach of his constitutional right to natural justice, and caused egregious damage to his reputation.”
Poor Belizeans, we all had thought that Mr. Patt had been afforded ample opportunity at the Inquiry to defend his name, and many say he did not do a great job of that. Mr. Patt having won his case, it was no surprise to Belizeans when on Wednesday the national treasury was hit by another humongous bill related to the Inquiry, this one, for $185,000, to be paid to the former Prime Minister, Dean Barrow.
Obviously very happy about the way things were going in the courts, Barrow recently opened up to the press in a series of candid interviews, one with Love FM in which he literally savaged unnamed members in his last Cabinet. It is just too preposterous to believe that in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic there were ministers in the last government who wanted UDPs to be cared for first! The money the former PM is getting from this court victory he most definitely doesn’t need, he being an eight-term area representative, five-term minister, three-term prime minister, and founder of a very successful law firm that just pounded our national treasury like a piñata in the Patt case.
The drain on our national treasury to pay parties who are aggrieved after appearing in the Inquiry isn’t yet plugged. There is reportedly another case, this one being brought by Godwin Hulse, a gentleman who made his way into two UDP Cabinets, via the Senate. Following precedent, if he perseveres he too will have his pound of our flesh after his day in court. Another member of a UDP Cabinet, Frank Mena, is also rolling in the sweets of a successful claim, this one a defamation case brought against an individual believed to be an affiliate of the PUP. In December last year, Mr. Mena won all of $80,000. In all these cases, after they walk away with their huge awards, we hear the victorious political leaders say that it’s not about the money, it’s vindication of their good name.
Belizeans appreciate that accusing people falsely is not a nice thing, and that people should make amends when they scandalize others. In the cases of political leaders versus the government and people of Belize, an apology should suffice when a government has failed to follow the law to the letter. With this demand for monetary compensation, politicians are taking advantage of the people. They are rubbing salt into a deep wound.
Our political leaders sabotage the essential oversight bodies so they can operate with impunity. Most of the individuals they select to perform the watchdog roles are their friends, or timid people who have never made a ripple in their lives. With men and women in the oversight bodies who see no evil and hear no evil, no one is in place to ensure that our political leaders and their cronies don’t run off with the people’s money and properties. When the rare watchdog shows some teeth and reports on evil being done in government, their reports to the people are stymied.
At the monthly House sittings, the people of Belize get to see the kiba on the pataki of scandals lifted as area representatives hurl accusations across the aisle about past and present corrupt acts, each side using colorful adjectives that stretch the limits of civility. While in opposition, Dean Barrow called then Prime Minister, Said Musa, a whitéd sepulcher; while in opposition Said Musa told then Prime Minister, Dean Barrow, that his name stank.
Being exiled to the backbench is the worst punishment that a political leader has received. Those few who have been removed from Cabinet for all but being convicted of improper deeds, continue, despite their misdeeds, to collect monthly pay checks from the people, even after they leave office.
The UDP government of 1993-98 spent an enormous amount of money and time chasing former PUP minister VH Courtenay over a transaction he oversaw during his time as chairman of the Social Security Board (SSB). While no “legal guilt” was proved, the people would say that the Esquivel government of that day was serious in that endeavor.
A charge of theft brought against the PUP’s Said Musa and Ralph Fonseca by a subsequent UDP government, 2008-12, was clearly meant for theater. The PUP leaders were charged with diverting funds received from friendly governments, to pay off the Universal Health Services loan at the Belize Bank. While that show was going on, interest payments on the principal loan ran in the tens of millions.
This Inquiry fiasco is the third of its kind in the last two decades. Mass demonstrations at the National Assembly led to an Inquiry into the 1998-2003 PUP’s management of our assets. That PUP government was open for business to sell off everything the people owned – water, telecommunications, electricity, port, and “flag of convenience.” Nobody could say that that PUP’s agenda, to make the running of these enterprises more efficient and to raise monies to invest elsewhere, was all bad, and if you don’t mind living in a country with a few filthy rich local families, being dictated to by a man who is the spitting image of the ones who used to crack the whip over our ancestors’ backs, and having 50% of the population near abject poverty, then what the PUP was about was actually a good thing.
The report from that Inquiry, which targeted the government’s utilization of the funds and other assets of the SSB and the DFC, was blocked from publication. Another Inquiry, which primarily involved the mishandling of passports in the Immigration Department, languishes. Now this most recent Inquiry in all likelihood has crashed, and maybe to put an end to our ever wanting to know about the handling of our monies and properties again, members of our former government, because the Inquiry was not carried out properly, are swimming in our cash. It’s a tidy, not tiny, sum we have to pay. But our political leaders would probably tell us we shouldn’t complain too much, because we got some great theater.