Leader of Opposition denies old corruption allegations about oil contract

There was a second contract that came out on Miles Tropical Energy. The principals of that company were Oren Miles and Allen Saum. Saum is the man that the Prime Minister’s nephew Kimano Barrow had a falling out with over contracts for Paradise Energy Limited. But in the years before the fallout between Barrow and Saum’s Paradise, there was trouble already with Miles Tropical.  At that juncture Saum accused the government of accepting bribes. Briceño says that although both incidents were in the same U.S. State Department cable, he had already left cabinet and was no longer the Minister of Natural Resources.

Jose Sanchez

“The next contract dealt with Miles Tropical Energy and you are saying now a hundred thousand U.S. spent anything with you, with any driver of the Prime Minister or any minister for that matter. Anything transpired there?”

John Briceño, Leader of the Opposition

“Well if you were to look at the dates, those allegations were made after I had left. I was no longer the minister when those allegations were made, so it would be unfair for me to comment on something I was never a part of—I wasn’t even in the cabinet.”

Jose Sanchez

“But at the end of the day, at least the Wikileaks from the U.S. Embassy is saying that after these events happened that you were removed as the natural resources minister, but did that have anything to do with the allegations?”

John Briceño

John Briceño

“That’s absolute rubbish. Everyone knew at that time why I resigned from cabinet and that I wanted to spend more time in my constituency and those two allegations have absolutely nothing to do with my decision to resign from cabinet or be asked to resign from cabinet.”

Jose Sanchez

“Having read most of the Wikileaks on Belize, they are mostly news summaries with opinions that weren’t necessarily meant to be published. Why do you think these allegations from 2005 are growing new wings?”

John Briceño

“Well obviously the party in government, the U.D.P. wants to find something to be able to attack the P.U.P. they want to use it as a distraction from the real issues that are affecting the Belize people: the issue of jobs, the issue of the economy, crime, health, education, broken infrastructure, failed town council and municipal bodies all across this country. These are the real issues that are affecting the daily lives of Belizeans; anything that they can get their hands to distract the Belizean people, they will use it; just like the ninth amendment.”

Jose Sanchez

“I don’t know if you’ve had a chance, but have you read the other Wikileaks on the performance of the performance of P.U.P. or U.D.P. government for that matter?”

John Briceño

“I have gone through some of them, I have not gone through all of them; but I think what would be interesting when we hear the Prime Minister’s comments when he admitted to the American Embassy here on his move on the acquisition in B.T.L. has killed investor confidence—that it has gone down to zero. I hope that he will be interviewed and what will be his answers when he did admitted on issues where he was really talking really bringing down the former chief justice; that he made it seem so personal as to why he had to be changed including the foreign minister. I think it will be very interesting to hear what is it that they have to say about the allegations made about their government.”