Musa Responds to Lord Ashcroft, “There Is No Pension Plan”

Kareem Musa

In our one-on-one interview with Lord Michael Ashcroft on Wednesday, he suggested that at least one of the controversial port contracts is, “a pension plan for the boys, except I think some of the boys have actually worked out that they are not in on the deal”.  We caught up with Kareem Musa, a sitting member of Cabinet, in Belize City today. Reporters asked Musa if he is one of the “boys” Lord Ashcroft is referring to.

Kareem Musa, Minister of Government

“How can I be one of the boys? First of all there is no pension plan, no pension scheme. This is an agreement that went to Cabinet as much other Cabinet paper that is discussed by Cabinet and it was shut down. So, I don’t understand how it is that we are now saying this is some sort of a pension scheme. You should ask Erwin Contreras and Dean Barrow and those other entire minister whether it was a pension plan for them who signed it. They are they ones who signed it. You see we are left with their mess. We have to clean up their mess and that is what we are doing and we have to review the document because it has legal consequences and economic consequences for the country. We saw what happened to BTL and BEL, how much hundreds of millions can you afford? I know Mr. Ashcroft can afford hundreds of millions more because he has an interest as well. That is all good for him, but the Belizean people cannot afford that anymore. So we have to consider these agreements that have legal consequences that are born out of the UDP government, not our government.”