Normally, it takes six months before a cheque becomes stale-dated, but those persons who did not move swiftly to cash their PUP pre-election housing grants and loans from the Ministry of Housing now find themselves holding cheques that are no good—not because the Government has run broke, but because the fund from which the monies were to come has reportedly been depleted.
Financial Secretary Joe Waight explained to our newspaper that a total of $20 million Belize was received from Venezuela, and the Government had earmarked $10 million for housing loans and grants, $2 million for the Marion Jones Sports Complex, and the remaining $8 million for social projects – health, education, streets, drains and roads. A total of $15.3 million, however, has been drawn down through the Housing Department from the Venezuela grant, Waight confirmed.
Today, we contacted former Prime Minister Said Musa, who held the finance portfolio until February 6, 2008, and we asked him whether he was surprised that the Venezuela money had been depleted.
Musa replied that he couldn’t comment, because he does not know for a fact how the present administration arrived at the figures.
“The impression I had at the time of election was that many people had not received their grants that they had applied for,” Musa added.
Official information from the Ministry of Finance to our newspaper is that the housing money was disbursed through the Housing Ministry, controlled at the time by then campaign manager for the People’s United Party, Ralph Fonseca. The monies, we were told, were funneled through PUP area reps and standard bearers across the 31 electoral divisions, but no candidates for the now ruling party, United Democratic Party, were allocated any for their divisions.
“The entire ten (10) million Belize dollars allocated to housing, which was received from the Government of Venezuela, have been disbursed, and therefore, no ‘outstanding’ cheques can be honored,” said a press release issued today from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. “Indeed, home improvement grants and loans disbursed during the period 4th January 2008 to 8th February 2008 exceeded the funds allocated from the Venezuela grant by almost $5.3 million.”
Waight said he could not say how many cheques were still out, but he expects that they are few. GOB would order stop payments on the outstanding cheques, he said.
Last week he had, indeed, informed us that the Venezuela money was almost all spent, with roughly $7 million used up in the month leading up to the general elections.
Of note is that the Venezuela spending was made without National Assembly approval, and there was debate inside the new Government as to whether the previous administration had permission to spend that many millions without National Assembly approval, given that finance laws place a cap of $5 million on monies that can be spent without going to the House first for approval. Government’s legal advisors, Waight said, indicated that it was legal to do so, since the Venezuela money is a grant.
Musa agreed that indeed, under the Finance and Audit (Reform) Act, the $5 million limit does exist, but their legal advisors told them that since the Venezuela money is a grant, they didn’t need prior approval from the National Assembly to spend it. The only legal requirement is that the money is properly accounted for, he added.
When the motion for spending the Venezuela money does make it to the House, it will be after the fact – fait accompli. The new Barrow administration, which took over from Musa on February 8, will have to do the accounting for the Venezuela money.
The House of Representatives holds its first meeting on Friday, March 14, 2008. It is expected that by then, the Ministry of Housing will have completed its report, which Waight said is now being compiled.
Waight explained that generally, the purpose of such grants is to alleviate poverty.
Musa elaborated that most of the Venezuela money was allocated to the Ministry of Housing, but some of it went to meeting infrastructural obligations, such as the Blue Creek to Orange Walk road upgrade, while part went to the National Health Insurance Scheme, and to education.
With respect to the Marion Jones Sports Complex, Musa said that the project was ongoing prior to the elections; however, they were still awaiting the final disbursement of funding from Taiwan, which was approved two years ago, to finance the bulk of the work. The actual disbursement of the loan was on the verge of being made, but Government decided to hold on until after the elections, he added.