Julius Espat Turns Down Christmas Cheer for Cayo South

Julius Espat

P.U.P. Deputy Leader Julius Espat will not be participating in the Petrocaribe-sponsored Christmas cheer program. Through that political initiative, all U.D.P. Area Reps will allegedly be receiving one hundred and ten thousand dollars. All P.U.P. Area reps should receive thirty-five thousand, which is the same amount collected by unelected U.D.P. caretakers. The P.U.P. made the decision last week to participate, but now Espat is saying that he will not. Today, he told us via phone that it doesn’t mean that his constituents won’t feel the Christmas Cheer…it’s just that it will not be sponsored by Petrocaribe.

Via Phone: Julius Espat, Deputy Leader, P.U.P.

“I actually made the decision a long time ago Mike except we had a National Executive meeting where the Party Leader made it clear to everybody that the way he steers his ship he really and truly believes in democracy, and even though he as the leader of the Party did not believe that we should accept it he left it to everybody to vote on it. It was a unanimous vote. Everybody agreed that they thought we should accept it, and everybody knew how I felt and we left it at that. And I was even inclined to do it, Mike. The last time you had interviewed me I was of that thought. And what I decided was to go into Cayo South and speak to all my village leaders and some of my villagers and my local executive, and it was a unanimous decision confirming that we should stand on principle and not accept it, and so subsequent to that I sat with the Party Leader. I asked for a meeting with him. He agreed. I sat with him and I explained my position which was a difficult one because I was the one commissioned by the Party to be Chairman of the PAC. I was the one commissioned by the Party to lead this legal claim. I explained all of that to him and he agreed that I had the right to be able to make the decision not to accept it. And so I did.”

Mike Rudon

“There will be some of your constituent who say…what about us? They see other areas getting whatever amounts of the Christmas cheer they get and some of them will say what about us? How will you deal with those questions?”

Via Phone: Julius Espat

“We dealt with that before the decision was made. I went to seek financing with people that help me in the villages, with our volunteers…people come up with ten dollars, fifty dollars, one hundred dollars and then my local executive also chipped in, and we had friends of Cayo South who also chipped in and in the end we have what it takes to have our Christmas Cheer without the Petrocaribe funds.”

We note that the spirit of the Petrocaribe monies, the benefit of a social assistance program with Venezuela, is rooted in equal distribution for the purpose of poverty alleviation. Of course, he who holds the piper’s purse-strings calls the tune, which explains why U.D.P.-represented constituencies receive three times the amount of P.U.P. represented constituents.