BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Mar. 12, 2015–Coming on the heels of a crushing defeat at the polls in last week’s municipal elections—a defeat which was apparently sealed because the PUP had very little campaign financing—the Opposition People’s United Party is now reeling from the public release of a private and confidential conversation which former PUP leader, Johnny Briceño, had with two members of the Orange Walk East committee – a secretly recorded conversation which rehashes much of what has been in the public domain for more than a decade, but which furthermore suggests that certain key players in the party, formerly at the helm of government, had almost led the country to bankruptcy while siphoning tens of millions of dollars from the Belizean treasury.
In the leaked recording which became public this week, Briceño, speaking mostly in Spanish, allegedly fingers former Cabinet colleagues, without calling any names, for having “robbed” tens of millions of dollars from Belizeans.
Almost 15 minutes into the recording, which runs just over an hour, Briceño makes what many have interpreted to be a stunning accusation of mass fleecing from the public purse.
“That’s the cancer that we [the PUP] have; that cancer that came and robbed millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars from the people. I’m not talking about a little bit of money! Millions—tens of millions of dollars—they robbed. Had this been another country, they would be in jail right now,” Briceño said.
It’s an allegation that former Prime Minister Said Musa, whose administration Briceño fingered, has flatly denied as “false.”
“Well, I feel like all he said was false, and I know it was false. Now, what his state of mind was? I don’t know. But I can tell you that we discussed it fully today and I’m satisfied that we have a way to move forward now,” Musa commented, in speaking with reporters Wednesday afternoon.
The matter of the controversial recording of Briceño took center stage at a previously planned national executive meeting held at the party’s headquarters at Independence Hall in Belize City today.
We understand that at the time of the recording, Briceño was meeting with Julian Chell, Sr., and his son, Julian Chell, Jr., in the run-up to last week’s municipal elections, and we understand that Briceño does not intend to take on Chell, Jr., who allegedly recorded the conversation.
Understandably, the PUP executives are very upset over the recording – both its contents and the fact that it has been circulated so widely in the public domain, via the news media and social media.
Julius Espat, PUP area representative for Cayo South, has asked for a public apology from Briceño, for allegations that Espat selfishly used up campaign money for his division, securing himself a seat in Parliament, while leaving other Cayo constituencies out in the cold.
Espat made it vocally clear to Briceño that he was not happy about his allegations that he spent most of the Cayo campaign money, and he told us that just as Briceño has claimed on his own part, he, Espat, had borrowed money, half a million dollars, to donate to the PUP when Briceño was leader.
Espat said that he wants Briceño to say categorically whether he believes what he has alleged in the recording and if not, he, Briceño, should say that he made a mistake to have said what he did.
“You can’t say things and don’t have facts to back it up,” Espat told us, adding that he has chosen to address the matter publicly because he has a reputation to uphold as a businessman for over 20 years in whom clients have at times entrusted millions of dollars.
In a Facebook post, Espat said, “John Briceño lied about me in his campaign to be leader again [in his recording]. He lied because he knows that the distribution of funds for the 2012 election was done by a team and not by me. His brother Jaime Briceño was the co-campaign manager.”
Espat added that, “…John has done serious damage to our loyal party supporters, which has eroded their trust in him. He has accused his colleagues of things that he has no proof of.”
However, there is a suggestion being made from the Briceño camp that the recording was leaked by certain persons in leadership within the party to distract from the real issues affecting the party.
In a statement released Tuesday, Briceño did not deny the contents of the leaked recording, but said that, “Some weeks ago, I was engaged in a private conversation with two trusted members of our party who are members of the Orange Walk East executive. It has now come to my attention that the contents of our private conversation were recorded and circulated publicly.
“The discussion with these individuals was a private one and by recording and leaking it to the public is a gross violation of my privacy.”
The ruling United Democratic Party sees the Briceño recording as a confession of “mass corruption during the 1998 – 2008 PUP administration…”
The UDP release said that their party officials “…have listened to the contents of this audio recording where Mr. Briceño is heard to confirm multiple mass corruption schemes during the Musa/Fonseca era, including, as he put it, ‘the robbery of tens of millions of dollars’ with such schemes as the St. James Credit Union loans, the Intelco bankruptcy, Social Security loans and guarantees, the sale and re-sale of BTL [Belize Telemedia Limited], involving [Michael] Ashcroft and [Jeffrey] Prosser, the US dollar/Yen swap, the accommodation agreement, the giveaway of Belize Bank taxes, among others.”
The release said that Briceño was not just a spectator in the Musa/Fonseca period; he was the Deputy Prime Minister of Belize and Deputy PUP Leader.
“Mr. Briceño knows exactly what he is talking about. The UDP believes that the Briceño tape is the most compelling evidence ever of the sweeping corruption and decay that permeated, at the highest levels, the PUP administration and party. Most of the players in the Musa/Fonseca administration continue to hold senior positions in the PUP today, a clear indication that the party has not changed,” the UDP release added.
It concludes by saying that, “The PUP leadership cannot ignore this dramatic development: never before has such a high-ranking politician indicted his own party in his own voice.”
Back in October 2011, it made headlines when Briceño, then as Leader of the Opposition, made a controversial statement at a National Party Council meeting similarly suggesting a multi-million-dollar fleecing of the public purse, but calling for those funds, allegedly hidden overseas, to be brought back to Belize, so that the PUP could seize the reins of power from the United Democratic Party.
“I want to ask where are those millionaires, those people that made millions of dollars over the 10 years when we were in government? Where are those people that benefited? …I could give unu names, but ah no wah call out names,” Briceño said.
“They [the millionaires] need to bring [that] money back to the PUP…. That money does not belong in foreign bank accounts! Bring it yah, so we could fight once again and … tek down Barrow and the UDP!” Briceño retorted in answering Musa.
Then Police Minister, Doug Singh, told our newspaper at the time that Briceño’s statements should be investigated, but he said that would be a matter for the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which, in turn, said that they could not carry out an investigation if Briceño did not indicate who had hidden the millions overseas.
The latest suggestion of millions being “robbed” from the Belizean people resurfaces less than a month after information provided by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), via the Swiss Leaks project, signaling that more than BZ$100 million had been deposited by 9 Belizeans and offshore companies registered in Belize. The maximum amount of money associated with a client connected to Belize was US$8.9 million, and 43 client accounts – linked to 97 bank accounts — were reportedly opened between 1999 and 2006.
However, the information provided did not reveal who the accountholders are, and furthermore did not specify whether the funds had been deposited illegally. Again, the FIU could not launch an investigation without the names of the account holders being provided.
Last month, Eugene “Fatback” Webster, a former employee of the late Ralph “Ralphie” Fonseca, Jr., son of the former PUP government minister, Ralph Fonseca, publicly claimed that Ralphie had about $1 million stashed away in a safe, and $37 million in various countries “all over the world.”
However, Ralph Fonseca told our newspaper that the allegations were untrue.
When Amandala probed Briceño back in 2011 about his statements, claiming that millions had been stashed in overseas accounts, he said that it was very clear that over the 10 years the PUP was in power (1998 to 2008), the economy of Belize was growing and “things were happening.” Briceño added that a lot of people, specifically “business people,” made money over the course of those ten years.
This time, the thrust of his explanation was the same, and Briceño held that he was not claiming that Musa had personally taken any money.
While there are allegations that some have become extremely wealthy by amassing the financial assets of Belize, it appears that the party continues to face financial hardships. We were told by a PUP insider that the party had less than a million dollars allocated to the national campaign manager for the municipal elections, what that official called “chum change” in contrast to what the ruling United Democratic Party had to spend.
The recently released Briceño recording likewise paints the picture of a very cash-strapped PUP, one for which he said he had made personal financial sacrifices by channeling $3 million of personal funds into the party, and by taking out a million-dollar loan to provide funds for the PUP – something that he said Ralph Fonseca, Said Musa and George Price never did for the party.
Briceño said that he is still paying $14,800 monthly to service debt he had acquired for the PUP, but he had to pull back because had he continued on that path, he would have bankrupted his company and caused hardship on his family.
In the recording, Briceño revealed that the PUP has also been having a hard time coming up with money to pay for campaigners and so they had to be very selective in taking only the best ones to work in Orange Walk – the only municipality delivered by the PUP in last week’s municipal elections.
In the recording, Briceño also spoke of the rise of the G-7, a group of 7 Cabinet ministers, of which he was the most senior. That group rose publicly in opposition to the financial policies and practices of the Said Musa administration back in August 2004, and resigned en masse from Cabinet.
Briceño, the then Deputy Prime Minister, said that they had to do what they did because “the country was going to go bankrupt.”
He spoke of the gamble Fonseca had made in a Japanese Yen swap – a US$5 million gamble which Belize lost.
Briceño also recalled the failed trading of shares in Belize Telecommunications Limited, later renamed the Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL), which saw the Musa administration broker a buy-back deal with British billionaire Michael Ashcroft to repurchase the shares he had sold to the Government.
The Government next credited those shares to American Jeffrey Prosser, who controlled BTL for several months on the strength of a promissory note, although they learned that Prosser was nearing bankruptcy, Briceño said, commenting that Prosser had received profits from BTL without having even paid a cent for those shares.
When Ashcroft came back into the picture, he was also asked to take on assets held by Intelco, and he wanted a 15% guaranteed rate of return which he would deduct from taxes if he did not receive it via the telecoms investment, Briceño also chronicled.
After Wednesday’s meeting of PUP executives, Opposition Leader Francis Fonseca told the press that the Briceño allegations would be treated as an “internal party matter” and not a public matter.
“We will deal with it in a very responsible way, in a brotherly way, and we believe we are on the way to resolving whatever differences exist among us,” Fonseca said.
“What we are focused on, as you have heard very clearly today, is moving forward,” he added.
When the media questioned him after yesterday’s PUP executive meeting, Briceño reaffirmed his support for the PUP and for Fonseca, and declined to address the contents of the leaked recording.
“I stand here as a proud member of the People’s United Party. I believe in the principles and the policies of the People’s United Party, and as a party supporter we have one leader; that leader is the Hon. Francis Fonseca. I support Francis Fonseca. I support his leadership,” said Briceño, who had claimed in the recording that Francis Fonseca wanted to make him irrelevant.
Briceño added that, “We have one enemy, and that is the United Democratic Party. We believe that this country needs the People’s United Party back in government.”
Notably, a photo of Briceño and his wife standing adjacent to Prime Minister Barrow and his wife at a formal social gathering has been circulating on social media.
Briceño referred to that photo, saying that, “Dean Barrow and I are not enemies. I am not enemies with Gapi Vega [Deputy Prime Minister] or with any UDP. We are political enemies, but personally, we are friends. We are a small country to be hating each other.”