P.M.: No Excuses to Perform

And finally from the House tonight: Friday may have been Budget day, but the atmosphere in the National Assembly was still dominated by Wednesday’s municipal elections. After mutual congratulations and some bragging by Prime Minister Dean Barrow and Opposition Leader John Briceño, P.U.P. Caribbean Shores Area Representative Kareem Musa called out the Prime Minister for suggesting that U.D.P.-controlled councils may be treated more favorably when it comes to resource allocations from Central Government. But the Prime Minister wouldn’t buy it. He said that Bernard Wagner and his team will have no excuses not to perform.

Kareem Musa, Area Rep., Caribbean Shores

“In the Prime Minister’s final years or months or days, we’re not sure what it is, as the Prime Minister of the country, I want to urge him to eat a bit of humble pie. I know you don’t like that dish a lot, but try to ease up on the ‘Barrowgance’ a little bit. Let’s display some level of statesmanship in this time, some bi-partisanship. Let us be above the fray, Mr. Prime Minister. We know that the municipality of Belize City has benefited over the last ten years tremendously, from Central Government’s assistance. And I want to urge you, Mr. Prime Minister: not because the Belize City people have voted blue that we are to punish them. I want to urge you to please continue to assist them, because we know, you know, the financial straits that the previous [administration of the] municipality has left at City Hall. It is a mess, and [in] the coming weeks ahead we are going to see all of the mess.”

Dean Barrow

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“Nobody wah hear no kind of excuses about weh position you find when you get in there. Everybody – the Belize City Council run by the U.D.P. was ‘oapn paki’; everybody always knew that it was always touch and go with the finances of Belize City, that the previous mayor was always apparently, or so it seemed, hanging by a thread. But that previous Mayor and that previous Council had the dexterity, and the creativity, and the ingenuity, to make a hell of a go at running Belize City, notwithstanding … (applause) the chronic and continuing cash shortage. You already di try set up fi mek excuse for the fact that your Belize City Council will fail! It’s not a matter of my wishing bad for the Council, but that’s precisely what is going to happen, and you are trying from now to set the stage for when unu come back and seh, ‘well we had to retrench this one and we had to curtail on this service.’ No, no, no! The people of Belize City don’t want to hear that. You have won; I congratulate you on it, now govern.”