Serious Financial Mismanagement Da Borda!!
Pointing to one example of gross financial abuse, Minister Mahler said that a whopping four hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars was paid for a faulty IT network at one of the agency’s offices. According to Mahler, all the IT expert needed to do was simply plug out and reconnect a cable to render the network functional.
Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism
“I will now just share with the Belizean people and my colleagues in here, some of how the monies were spent. Mr. Mike Gamez: six hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Mr. Sergio Nal: six hundred and forty-two thousand dollars. Mr. Carlos Castro: three hundred and seventy-eight thousand dollars. Two hundred thousand which were spent on ACs. The AC almost burnt down the western facility the other day. Mr. Juan Carlos Chulin: four hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars for IT work and I‘ll just share with you a report from the audit done by an IT expert. “As a result, no one knows the originating points of the cables with a couple of exceptions. Same applies for the network devices such as routers and switches. The routers and switches in the local network are not properly configured and are not documented, hence the team found two routers in the network located in two different buildings. Pretty much what the report is saying, all they did for IT work, for four hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars when Mr. Chulin was called was to plug out the system and plug it back in. That‘s all, for four hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars.”