Is There a Lack of Accountability in Funding of National Bank?

The senate met on Thursday in Belmopan. It dealt with a number of issues, including three money matters – the write-off for twelve point two million dollars, a twenty million loan motion for improvement of education and governance in education, and the ten million dollar re-capitalization of the National Bank. The three motions were received by senators with no explanations. Private Sector Senator Mark Lizarraga pointed out that for them to support the money bills, senators need documentation showing what the money will be used for, or how the money has been used.

Mark Lizarraga, Senator, Business Sector

Mark Lizarraga

“If you were to ask me right now what were these monies will be expended on, I honestly could not tell you with any certainty what these monies were being used for. And I think that when you make a loan proposal for example with any one of the international lending agencies, I am sure the documents are available and I am sure there are extensive documents showing exactly what these monies will be used for. In the case of the re-capitalization of the National Bank, it would have been nice for us to have known what the first twenty million was used for. Today we were told that only twelve million has been expended or allocated thus far, so there’s another eight million dollars that they have that still has not been expended though we understand that there is a lot of demand for money. We’d still like to know where the money has gone, what it is being used for, and why you need more. In the case of the loan for the educational improvement of governance and accountability in the education system, that’s a very good request. But we would like to see specifically how you are going to spend this money, how will it improve governance, how will it improve accountability, what are you going to use the money for? To train teachers? In what way, in what areas?”