Leader of the Oppositions speaks on proposed amendments
Last Wednesday when the Foreign Affairs and Constitution Committee conducted its public consultations on the constitutional amendments in Belize City, three of the hot button issues were the powers of the Senate, the mechanism to recall ministers, and that of the language of amendment three, which dealt with petroleum rights. Yesterday Prime Minister Dean Barrow assured the general public that he is listening to their opinions … but for Opposition Leader John Briceño, the fact that they have had to be making revisions shows that they were not thinking things through.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
“We will be making such changes as the positions they express merit. For sure, we will take out that portion of the proposed amendment dealing with mineral rights that suggests, that mandates or gives government the authority to turn over its title in the oil to the oil companies. We are going to scrap that and we will not bring back the bill for passage unless and until we have, before that time, circulated the draft ordinary law that would implement the provision having to do with the recall of elected officials.”
John Briceño, Leader of the Opposition
“It has been very clear that certainly us in the Opposition and certainly a lot of people accept in principle that the oil belongs to the government and people of Belize, but we should not block access to the courts for Belizeans when it comes to compensation. Not compensation to the oil, but compensation to using your land, compensation on royalties as already been set out in the Petroleum Act. But those are things that can be removed two years from now, five years from now, ten years from now, they can be removed. And once you block access to the courts as is being set out right now under these amendments, it is certainly of concern to Belizeans. I heard the Prime Minister today announce that he will be doing some changes with that, so at least they have been listening to the concerns. The recall mechanism, the concern that how can we be passing an amendment to the constitution and we don’t know what the legislation is going to look like. He again has promised to do that. He has promised to remove the preventative detention, so again it shows that the government was not properly thinking out what they were going to be proposing. There is this concern about reducing the powers and responsibilities of the senate. In one hand you are saying we are empowering the Senate by including another person from the N.G.O.s so that between the N.G.O.s and the Opposition, that they could have a majority, but yet you remove all the powers and the important responsibilities that they have, so again these are the conflicts that we are seeing.”
