Doug Singh Fell on His Own Sword

U.D.P. Chairman Michael Peyrefitte has not had a chance to speak with former S.S.B. Chairman Doug Singh, however, in an interview with News Five this afternoon; he said that Singh’s prompt resignation was the right decision in light of the unfortunate remarks.  The focus, says Peyrefitte, should remain on government’s efforts to get the people of Belize through the COVID-19 crisis.  According to Peyrefitte, the vacancies left in the wake of Singh’s departure will be filled in a timely manner as government’s work must continue.

On the Phone: Michael Peyrefitte, Chairman, United Democratic Party

“Doug made certain statements to a reporter, it was leaked.  Based on that conversation becoming public, he decided, as I would imagine, I haven’t spoken to him but I would imagine that he didn’t want to be a distraction.  That’s not where the focus should be at this point, the focus shouldn’t be on Doug or his comments, the focus should be about fighting COVID-19 and having our people prepared to fight this diseased and also at the same time trying to come out of it with some semblance of economic integrity.  So he thought it was best that he remove himself from the process and anything having to do with the government so that he could not be a topic of discussion.”

Isani Cayetano

“The comments, nonetheless, came at the most inopportune and the most, you know, the most sensitive time in terms of what a lot of people are grappling with in terms of the economic hardship.  Is there anything else perhaps that the party can do to try to save face, in a manner of speaking, given what has transpired?”

On the Phone: Michael Peyrefitte

“Well, the party at this stage is not going to use any energy to deal with that, he has resigned.  He has resigned and decided to take himself out of the conversation and I think that at this point that should be enough.  Not only that, let me tell you, the prime minister and party leader has made it very clear that we’re in the midst of a pandemic.  We’re in a national emergency trying to fight a disease.  Party matters are on pause.  We’re not even thinking about ourselves as party officials, we are thinking only government and what we can do for the people during this COVID-19 period.  So we’re not going to dig too deep into that, he made his unfortunate comments and from what I have heard from social media, I don’t have social media, but from what I’ve heard there were some people who were blasting him and there were some people who were fully in support of what he said.  So we can debate that, but you know what, we don’t have any time debate that.  The man made his comments and we believe that the comments would have caused a distraction, he resigned so we can move on and talk about what’s really important.”