Belize Progressive Party Calls on G.O.B. to Sign Anti-corruption Convention

Today is international anti-corruption day and around the world one hundred and seventy-seven countries are observing it. Belize isn’t one of those countries, but about seven persons representing the Belize Progressive Party today protested in front of the National Assembly, calling on government to sign on to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, UNCAC. According to the B.P.P.’s Bobby Lopez, if they were in government that document would have been signed and sealed. Lopez told us today that despite a low turn-out in support, he and the B.P.P. will remain firm against corruption. 

Bobby Lopez, Belize Progressive Party

“I’m not going to say it’s not disappointing, but history will record hat we stood up, we made our voices heard, we took action; we continue to call. One day it will be signed. One day it will be signed and like we said, we plant the seed of change in the B.P.P. so this is continuing to nurture those seeds. They haven’t quite borne fruit yet, but one day it will. We call on the senators today…they are a part of it,; they need to pressure their government, they need to pressure their parties to sign on. And we hope that they themselves are also abiding by our own prevention of corruption act in disclosing their assets and making sure that they are not being unlawfully enriched while in office.”

Bobby Lopez

Mike Rudon

“Now the senate has been seen in the past as a rubberstamp basically because government has the majority. There are new senators, it’s a new composition although government still holds the majority, but there are new senators appointed by the U.D.P.  Is there any hope at this point that things will be different?”

Bobby Lopez

“Well they will show their true colors—whether they are Belizeans by conscious, by commitment, patriotic or they are just party rubberstamps. The political reform report of 2000 called for exactly this; showing that our senate was a rubberstamp, it needed to be certainly reformed. We advocate for an elected senate. Since that has not happened, we’d like to see the thirteenth senator put in place. But rubberstamp or not, we will see if the new senators—and we called them out as they were going up the steps—to please vote their conscience. Corruption is killing us; it’s like a quicksand. It is swallowing us up; it is swallowing the middle class, eventually the poor and eventually the whole country will be swallowed up as has taken place in other countries. So on this day, we stand the B.P.P. stands in solidarity and we are calling on the government; please it is time to sign on. We have now moved from petty corruption that we experienced in the last ten twelve years to now grand corruption where we harbour international fugitives that we wanted for millions if not billions of dollars in scamming people across countries and so we are now classified in the big leads of corruption as grand corruption.”