Musa says, if elected, he’ll hold finance portfolio

In other sporting news, this time from the national pastime called politics, leader of the opposition Said Musa has announced the holder of a key portfolio in any future P.U.P. Cabinet: himself. The statement came in response to a question from host Stuart Leslie on last night’s “One On One”.

Q: “Should the P.U.P. win this general election in the next two weeks and you become the Prime Minister. It has been the tradition that the Prime Minister of Belize assumes responsibility for the country’s finance. Will you be Minister of Finance if the People’s United Party is elected?”

Said Musa, Leader, P.U.P.

“As you say this has been the tradition of successive governments. The Prime Minister has to have responsibility for the finance of the country. But don’t go on to ask me who will be minister of this or minister of that, please. Because I have made it very clear in saying that we are going into this election, all twenty nine of us, the twenty-nine candidates of the P.U.P. running to become representatives of the people.

As part of our political reform we have gone on record as saying, and I feel very strongly about this, that we must reduce the powers of ministers and we must reduce the size of the Cabinet. And in our manifesto we are committed to saying that no more than two thirds of the elected representatives from the ruling party, from the majority party can be or will be in the Cabinet. We need to strengthen the backbench system.”

The P.U.P. leader went on to say that as part of his party’s package of political reforms each area representative, both government and opposition, would receive funds to maintain an office and carry out community initiatives within his or her division.