Gaspar Vega Leaves Cabinet; Position Under Pressure Following Land Deal

Gaspar Vega

Speculation was rampant all morning that once powerful Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Natural Resources and, more recently, Minister of Agriculture, Gaspar Vega, had resigned this morning. The conjecture followed a story that News Five broke last Tuesday and later picked up by other media houses. This afternoon, PM Barrow confirmed that after meetings this morning in Belize City, Vega tendered his resignation from Cabinet. But according to his close associates, Vega was in fact asked to step down after irrefutable evidence came to light that he had paid compensation, close to half a million dollars, to his son for privately held land. This was despite information that the land was not available. The parcel in question totaled two point two acres, including a portion claimed by Sharon Pitts, near mile five on the Philip Goldson Highway which stretches all the way to the sea; she also got upwards of four hundred thousand dollars in compensation. It was held privately by one Carlton Russell of a Partridge Street address.  The PM was at great pains to announce Vega’s fall from grace.

Dean Barrow

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“The Attorney General and I discussed this matter at some length on Friday and in fact she shared the relevant content of the files with me.  As a result of this I have been in constant communication with the Honorable Gaspar Vega who was Minister of Lands at the time the transactions took place.  I’ve been in touch with him throughout the weekend and him and I met this morning in my Belize City office; the Belize City office that actually belongs to the Minister of Foreign Affairs but which he’s kind enough to allow me to use.  As a result of that meeting, I accepted the resignation of the Honorable Gaspar Vega from the Cabinet of Belize, his resignation as a Minister of Government.  Now I must make clear that Gaspar said to me that he would never knowingly have signed titles to land that didn’t belong to government.  So that when he signed the final papers in connection with these two parcels of land, it was his feeling that all was in order and that the certificates for signature had been prepared on the basis that all was in order.  But he made clear that he recognizes that in all the circumstances, especially given that his son became the owner, in quotation marks, of one of the two parcels and was paid compensation after the facts were discovered in terms of the titles having been issued in error.  In all the circumstances, his position naturally became untenable.  He acknowledges that the new minister is inquiring into the facts with a view certainly, to the Government of Belize recovering on behalf of the taxpayers the monies that were paid as compensation and he is certainly not prepared to put himself and his family through the ringer which has been precipitated by these events.  So, as I have said, I have accepted his resignation from the Cabinet of Belize.”