Barrow and Briceño Goes Head-To-Head Over S.S.B. Loan
Leader of the Opposition Moses “Shyne” Barrow and Prime Minister John Briceño got into a heated debate at the adjournment of Friday’s Sitting of the House of Representatives. Opposition Leader Barrow rose to voice his objection to a twenty-million-dollar loan from Social Security Board to Public Administration One Limited. The loan agreement is for the construction of public administration campus on Lake Independence Boulevard, next to the Eleanor Hall Building. Members of the opposition party demonstrated outside of the National Assembly Building to protest this and other loan agreements by the Social Security Board. In the House, Barrow argued that no information has been made public about the borrower, Public Administration Campus 1 Limited. PM Briceño contended that the twenty-million-dollar loan is an investment to solve a longstanding public administration issue.
Moses “Shyne” Barrow
Moses “Shyne” Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
“This project I am talking about raises several alarms, under the UDP we had BIL that built many great projects we all appreciate now as we now have these athletics competition that when the PUP was there we did not have this world class facilities. We did this through the special purpose vehicle of BIL, which the member from Cayo South dismantled and did away with. So we have this twenty million dollars being invested in a dead raise entity that could belong to a crony or who we don’t know and it is being done under a PPP, but when you do PPPs it is the private entity that takes a hundred percent of the risk, in this instance we are told there is suppose to be two buildings that will cost forty millions, sixty million, we don’t know because the public does not get any information.”
Prime Minister John Briceño
Prime Minister John Briceño
“Your government spent one thousand dollars a square feet for Eleanor Hall building. We the build right now between two-fifty and three hundred a square feet. You know how much we the pay for poor people’s houses, a hundred and fifty dollars per square feet. Look at the difference and then you come here and embarrass yourself. This Social Security is an investment. It is an investment of seven point nine million dollars in equity and twenty million dollars loan. Then you talk that nobody wants to invest. Both Atlantic and Belize Bank are waiting because they want to invest in this. The government as it is spending about two point five million a year in rentals in Belize City alone. It is a sure investment because as it is almost all of that area is going to be rented by the Government of Belize and instead of we go pay other people, we are going to pay Social Security and the Government of Belize the rental, cause the government is also going to own a portion of the investment.”
