P.M. returns from Taiwan but silence is deafening
Prime Minister Said Musa returned home on Sunday but since then the silence out of Belmopan has been deafening. Despite several requests for an interview from our newsroom, the P.M.’s intermediaries made it clear that Mr Musa is not talking to the media. But tonight our sources suggest that the P.M., who also happens to be suffering from a case of laryngitis, is talking to his Cabinet ministers, specifically those on the Public Finance Committee, as they collectively search for a solution to end the political, constitutional and economic crisis now sitting uncomfortably on the P.U.P.’s doorstep. Musa has come under heavy fire from both inside and outside his party for his apparently unilateral decision to not only grant Universal Health Services a Government guarantee at the Belize Bank but also to convert that thirty-three million dollar liability into a loan with a very short repayment schedule. Late last week, a letter from the Bank leaked to the media indicated that Belmopan was to have made a first payment on the twenty-third of April but never did. In view of those facts, many of Musa’s own ministers have denied knowledge of the guarantee and the subsequent loan note putting the P.M. in an embarrassing spotlight. The magnitude of Said Musa’s problems is difficult to overestimate. Until the commitment is legally overturned, his government is obligated to pay thirty-three million dollars to the Belize Bank. But how do you squeeze all that money out of a budget that’s already in austerity mode? And while that reality is hanging over the Prime Minister’s head like piano dangling by a thread, for now it seems that he is being advised to use the legal challenge instigated by the Association of Concerned Belizeans to buy time. A press release issued by the Office of the Prime Minister in his absence last Friday, maintains: “While efforts [to settle the UHS debt] are ongoing we note that this matter has become the subject of legal action and therefore we are restrained in our ability to fully respond.”
The A.C.B. is asking the Supreme Court to rule on whether the government guarantee and the recently revealed loan note are legally enforceable. The interim hearing which would bar Belmopan from making any payments to the bank until a decision in the substantive case is rendered, has been set for next Monday before Justice Michelle Arana. As the case makes its way through the courts, several questions arise: if the guarantee and loan are deemed illegal, will that mean G.O.B. is off the hook from paying? If the money is really owed, can the P.U.P. round up enough support for such a bill to survive a vote in the House of Representatives and Senate? And even if Musa can round up a slim majority, can he risk the embarrassment of at least a handful of his ministers voting against the loan authorisation? Is there a way that the Prime Minister can somehow avoid even taking the loan to the National Assembly?
Today Leader of the Opposition Dean Barrow copied four letters to the media. The first was sent to Speaker of the House Elizabeth Zabaneh, calling for a May eighteenth House meeting; a second to the Clerk of the House Conrad Lewis containing two resolutions: one declaring the loan arrangements between the government and the bank were unlawfully made and, two, because it is illegal no monies are to be paid in cash or kind to the bank. The third letter is to the Prime Minister himself, requesting disclosure of all information related to Universal Health Services. The last is to Financial Secretary Dr. Carla Barnett, reiterating the U.D.P. position that the loan note is in violation of the Finance and Audit Reform Act and therefore urging Barnett not to facilitate payment of any kind until its lawfulness has been determined either in the National Assembly or the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile the nation awaits an explanation of why the Prime Minister, having ignored the law, custom, and common sense by secretly guaranteeing the private loan, compounded his mistakes by digging himself deeper into a black hole of what can only be described as official deception. We understand that tonight following the memorial service for David Courtenay, Said Musa will meet with his key ministers, looking for solutions to at least some of the problems now confronting him.
