Chamber still not interested in Venezuelan grant

Still on housing, the Venezuelan grant has been a controversial issue ever since the news broke that twenty million dollars had been granted to the government for housing late in 2007. The matter landed before the courts and while a ruling was made, the issue has still not been put to rest. To backtrack a little, the Government announced in September 2008 that a Committee had been established to oversee the disbursement of the funds. The committee was chaired by Deputy Prime Minister, Gaspar Vega and had representation from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, N.T.U.C.B. and U.W.I. Last week the N.T.U.C.B. said it still wants to be on the Committee but, according to Belmopan, the train had already left the station. There are now regional oversight committees being formed under the Ministry of Housing. And now the Chamber of Commerce has also decided to have no role in it. Amparo Masson, the Chamber’s president, shared their concerns with News Five.

Amparo Masson, President, Chamber of Commerce
“We had some concerns with the initial committee with regards to the meaning of the input from the social partners. I think we had concerns; we did convey those concerns to the deputy prime minister, who is the chair of that committee, and we were supposed to have another meeting but that meeting was never called. Subsequently we received another letter about the regional committees and we felt that because when we got the letter from the Ministry of Housing with regards to the regional committees, shortly after getting that letter the ministry had a press conference I believe outlining the process for distributing those funds. At that point, we hadn’t appointed any representative. We hadn’t even discussed it at the board level to decide whether we would participate. So we felt that if we had agreed to serve on those committees, it meant taking ownership of the process without having substantive input as to t he process and so we decided that it would be best to not participate and I believe an audit would probably be far more efficient in determining the use—how those monies were used.”