Photo: Senator Janelle Chanona, Chairperson of Senate Special Select Committee
Former UDP Ministers, Erwin Contreras and Hugo Patt, were present for the Senate Special Select Committee hearing on Wednesday, but the meeting was postponed until February 14 since a quorum was not reached.
by Marco Lopez
BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Jan. 25, 2024
The third session of the Senate Special Select Committee that is probing the Portico Definitive Agreement and the subsequent tabling of that agreement for the Cabinet, was postponed today after a quorum was not reached. The committee’s chairperson, Senator Janelle Chanona expressed her disappointment during an interview following the cancellation of the session, which was already being streamed live on YouTube.
A prompt statement released by the Government Press Office following the forced cancellation of the meeting mentioned that “some members of the committee are sick, traveling and going through family emergencies, which have resulted in a lack of quorum for the Public Hearing to be held.”
Chairperson Chanona in her remarks reiterated the same.
“We have several members that are dealing with different emergencies, crises, and required international travel,” she said. The number of missing members and their names were not revealed.
But the question being asked by many in the public and notably by the chairperson of the United Democratic Party, Senator Michael Peyrefitte, is how the committee could have not known that its members would be out and had to cancel at the eleventh hour, after already starting the broadcast of the session. The session was streamed for at least an hour and fifteen minutes before the notice of its cancellation was displayed.
“I don’t know how you did not know those people were not available before this morning,” Peyrefitte said.
Two former UDP Ministers, Erwin Contreras and Hugo Patt, were scheduled to testify before the committee during this session, and according to Chairman Peyrefitte, they were present at the National Assembly building.
“They were so gung-ho about it, and they seemed so aggressive in summoning Erwin Contreras and Hugo Patt; and they seem very nonchalant in wanting to hear from the Prime Minister himself, who was the one who took the document, the Definitive Agreement, as well as proposed legislative drafting to the Cabinet to be passed. So, they were excited to have these people there; these people showed up today, and they balked. What prevented them from proceeding with the hearing today and putting it to, I think, February 14 is anybody’s guess. That is a matter for them. I’m not privy to that information, but I think it would have been good for the public to have heard what these two gentlemen have to say, or at least their responses to the questions that they were going to ask them,” Peyrefitte said.
The public will have to wait until February 14 to hear Contreras’ and Patt’s responses to the committee’s questions about the events that led to the signing of the so-called Portico “Definitive Agreement.”
“We ask for the patience and understanding of everyone who has been following this process very closely, and I can tell you that the membership is very keen on moving the process expeditiously along; and it is indeed disappointing that today’s session was forced to be postponed, and we will be moving to make sure that that does not happen again in the future if at all it could be avoided,” Chanona said.