Prime Minister Said Musa appointed the Commission of Inquiry into the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) in March 2005, and after overcoming much resistance from the very management of the DFC in opening its books to the Commission, the Commission was finally able to proceed, coming public with its first hearing in August 2006. These sessions have done much to inform the general public on the inner workings of the DFC, and the nature of some major transactions that were made using millions of dollars in public funds. But since March—when the legal challenges to the Commission by some of these borrowers heightened—the hearings have migrated away from the public domain and become confined behind closed doors, while two major borrowers who have been summoned have yet to testify.
The end result has been mounting questions from a curious public about what has been happening with the Commission: why there have been no more public hearings and when something definitive will come out of it.
On Wednesday, a caller to the Love FM morning show asked Prime Minister Said Musa about the Commission’s progress. The Prime Minister charged, in his response, that “they’ve failed to produce” and that there is a political game being played in which the Commission will be dragged out to the very date of elections.
Musa said that the public hearings are finished, and he cannot understand why the DFC Commission has not produced a report.
He asserted that he has the power to end the inquiry, but he will not do so because Belizeans want to know what, if anything, went wrong with the DFC, and where it went wrong.
The Prime Minister has repeatedly urged the Commission to bring things to a close; however, the Commission has begged for more time, arguing that it wants to do as thorough a job as possible.
Via a statutory instrument dated last December, the Prime Minister had ordered the DFC Commission to wrap up by January 23, 2006.
On November 10, 2005, Musa had written to the Commission asking them to wrap up in a month. At the time, the former chairman, David Price was hospitalized.
Price died in December 2005, just before the PM’s S.I. appointing the remaining commissioners – Merlene Bailey-Martinez and Justice Herbert Lord – as co-chairs. That same S.I. told the Commission to end its work by Jan. 23.
At press time, we have been unable to get a comment from the Commission on the Prime Minister’s statements; however, we have been advised that we should expect an update from the secretariat shortly.
If the Commission were to wrap up its work now, it would have to do without testimonies from Novelos Holdings Ltd., which had borrowed $30 million from the DFC, and Dr. Victor Lizarraga, the main principal of UHS, for which the DFC had approved up to $28 million in financing. The Commission still intends to hear from both these parties, as they believe their testimonies are integral to the understanding of the DFC’s financial dealings with them.
There have been threats from some of the parties involved with the DFC loans that even after the Commission files its final report, the work of the Commission will be challenged in the court room. Already, the Novelos have filed a legal challenge against the Commission, more specifically, challenging the appointment and report of forensic auditor, Mark Hulse.
Hulse was appointed early December 2006; he submitted his report in February of this year, and the Commission does intend to include his audit in their final report.