Boots Running Out of Time?

Dean Barrow

Minister and Port Loyola area representative Anthony “Boots” Martinez remains under a cloud of accusations concerning his relationship with former caretaker and alleged contractor Kirk Lamb, who says he used Lamb’s credit union account to funnel payments for alleged contracts with the Ministry of Works. Martinez has denied these charges. He is also accused, a few days before the election, of approving payments to seven persons for community assistance, which he says are from the official charities fund. Prime Minister Dean Barrow says he still awaits concrete evidence of corrupt activity against Martinez. And despite his intention to leave politics at the end of his current term, Barrow says if that evidence is uncovered, friends though they may be, Boots is gone.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“Boots has long ago declared that he will not stand in the 2020 elections, in fact he has further declared that the moment I go, he goes.  And if you want to use that to try to underpin your earlier point that he and I are close, I make no apologies for that.  But I don‘t care how close we are, if any of you could have brought any kind of evidence to show me that Boots Martinez was involved in any kind of corrupt activity, I would have fired my friend and he would have been the first one to understand value that friendship.”