Musa claims innocence of criminal wrongdoing in the case of the Venezuela money
Fifteen hours is quite a lot of talk time, and for that many hours on Thursday and Friday, what was supposed to be the grand debate of the national budget instead featured plenty of politicking, comedy, and sensational exchanges between the ex-Prime Minister and citizens in the gallery, but much less discourse on Belize’s national development.
The sessions culminated after 4:00 on Friday evening when the House of Representatives gave its stamp of approval to the $825 million national budget presented by Prime Minister Dean Barrow two weeks ago.
Even though the members of the Opposition People’s United Party (PUP) strongly criticized the Barrow administration’s initiatives to address the cost of living crisis – it was the United Democratic Party that this time had its way, after being on the other side of the floor – as Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition for 10 years, two back-to-back terms.
For the first time since 1998, the UDP, now the ruling party, was in the driver’s seat, thereby ensuring that P.M. Barrow’s budget got the majority approval it needed before being sent up to the Senate for ratification next week.
The highlight of today’s House meeting was not the measures to help the struggling poor – but the spectacle surrounding the presentation made by former Prime Minister Said Musa, Fort George area representative, and the unpitying response of Mesopotamia area representative, Michael Finnegan.
It was another day of derision for Mr. Musa, but he showed tremendous grit by holding his ground until he accomplished what he had determined to do at today’s House Sitting. Yet another time, the controversial political figure – whose resignation has been demanded by some citizens from outside and even within his party – was booed, tongue lashed and ridiculed.
Mesopotamia area representative/Housing Minister Finnegan said Musa has more nerve “than 10 bad teeth,” and later noted that the member for Fort George had “left the building.” As soon as Finnegan started to respond to Musa’s statements to the House, the former Prime Minister picked up his bag and walked out of the meeting hall.
Finnegan said, “…the former Prime Minister and the PUP dropped that big ‘bukut’ on us and when they put that big ‘bukut’ on you it hurt – it was a terrible feeling.”
In his presentation on the budget, Musa tried to establish that his administration left the country in a commendable position when his party left office. He told the House that the country’s finances were in “good shape” on February 8, and foreign reserves were the best in several years, at more than $217 million. He credited his party with putting Belize on “the path to sustainable development.”
Musa furthermore argued that the Barrow administration had brought the Belizean economy into a recession marked with inflation – or what he termed “stagflation” only six months later.
Finnegan pointed especially to the moneys Musa committed to the rich companies of British billionaire Michael Ashcroft. He described the infamous accommodation agreement and its amendments with Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL) – which have Government tussling with the company over tax payments – as “reviling and nauseating.”
For the first time since the Barrow administration exposed the diversion of US$20 million in grants from Venezuela and Taiwan to the Belize Bank, Musa spoke publicly on the issue, telling the House that he got “not one cent of the generous gift,” and that the money did not benefit him personally. He claimed that he acted “in good faith, with good intentions,” and that not one penny of taxpayer funds was used to pay the Belize Bank for the Universal Health Services debt.
In his budget speech on July 14, P.M. Barrow referred to the diversion of housing grant funds for the poor to private hands as “criminal behavior.”
“I know that at the end of the day with all their charges, innuendos and counter charges, I committed no criminal wrongdoing and time will prove that,” Musa rebutted.
But the audience in the gallery would not let the ex-Prime Minister have his say unchallenged, and Speaker of the House, Emil Arguelles, warned that he would have to chase them from the gallery if they did not desist from their outbursts. The members of the gallery meted out their tongue lashing of Musa, as they chanted out phrases such as “corruption” and “resign” while the member stood making his presentation. But they were echoing much the same sentiments expressed by Finnegan, the Housing Minister.
“Can you imagine what kind of heart, what kind of feeling you have for the masses of the poor or the people out there when you are giving away the country lock, stock and barrel through an accommodation agreement?” Finnegan chided.
Not all the back and forth in the House was about the quarrel over the secret diversion of public funds. In fact, just as they did on Thursday, cost of living issues featured strongly in today’s session of the House of Representatives.
In wrapping up the debate Friday evening, Prime Minister Barrow said that based on global market trends, consumers would begin to feel an ease in prices for commodities such as food and fuel, because even though they are expected to remain high in the short term, the escalations seen earlier this year were not expected to continue unabated.
Prices are not going to go back, at least for the next 15 years, to where they were before the crisis started; but there is going to be some relief in respect to this dip in global prices for food, said Barrow.
In his remarks, Prime Minister Barrow also said his administration would ensure that the Government and people get a fair share of oil revenues, and the Income Tax Department and the Geology and Petroleum Department would be beefed up to take on their growing responsibilities.
On Thursday the Prime Minister had introduced to the House an amendment to the Income and Business Tax Act to give effect to a new surcharge on oil companies, to take effect September 1.
Barrow said he hopes the Legislature would pass the law by the end of August, and he projected revenues from the surcharge for the remaining half of the fiscal year to reach $18 million.
Even though the 90-day waiting period for much-debated constitutional amendments ended this week, they were not dealt with during the two days slated for the budget debate.
The delay in returning the constitutional amendments to the House is convenient, since on Monday, Chief Justice Dr. Abdulai Conteh is slated to make his landmark ruling in the case of four PUP Opposition affiliated citizens who have gone to the Supreme Court to challenge Barrow for not calling a national referendum before his administration pursues alterations to the Constitution.
The claimants argue that the amendments derogate from the fundamental rights and freedoms of the citizens of Belize, and under the extant Referendum Act, the Prime Minister must ask the Governor-General to issue a writ of referendum, so that the public can say whether they agree to the proposed changes in the Belize Constitution.
Of note is that national consultations over the amendments have only recently ended, and Prime Minister Barrow has said on record that his administration would no longer pursue two proposals – that for preventative detention and that which would have allowed the Government to transfer titles to minerals to the companies.