Barrow says P.M. just digging himself deeper
With those obvious questions still awaiting answers, it was left to the Leader of the Opposition to weigh in with his assessment. For Dean Barrow, a man who pursues the P.U.P. for a living, it was just one more instance in which Said Musa’s mouth got him into even deeper trouble.
Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
“Nobody accepts that he was acting in good faith, nobody accepts that he did not lie to his cabinet colleagues and to the nation and nobody accepts that we have any moral obligation to pay this debt or that we are better off in consequence of all the Prime Minister has done so it seems to me that he has made a very bad situation very much worse.”
“You get the sense that he’s saying come hell or high water, I don’t care what you people out there want to scream and holler about, I am determined to have the Government and by extension you the taxpayers, pay this debt. I think that’s what’s perhaps going to raise the greatest outcry on behalf of the Belizean people because here it is the Prime Minister saying in effect this was a good undertaking done for the highest of purposes and for that reason and in any event, I am telling you people, you need to pay, we need to pay and that really, I think, is what will be most unacceptable to the Belizean people.”
Janelle Chanona
“The P.M. makes reference to the fact that this is a standard sovereign guarantee, do you have any feelings about that?”
Dean Barrow
“I knew as soon as I read that, that that was an absolutely ridiculous claim. I can’t speak, there have only been three Ministers of Finance in the post, well, I’m sorry four because at one time Ralph Fonseca was Minister of Finance but only three persons that have been Prime Ministers and Ministers of Finance at the same time. I am of course only been able to check with one, the one that matters for me and my party and that is the Rt. Honourable Manuel Esquivel. And while I knew the answer, I certainly had it verified by him: He never ever signed any Government Guarantee of any private debt. Never ever, that is a matter of record. I can say this without any fear of contradiction and I dare the people on the other side to challenge this and so in my view this gives the lie to what Prime Minister said; he made it seem as though this is par for the course, that it is standard operating procedure. But to sign a public guarantee, a sovereign guarantee with respect to a private institution for a private facility, a private debt is, as far as I know, unheard of and I can say as I indicated without fear of contradiction, that certainly in the two terms during which the United Democratic Party was in office, Manuel Esquivel as Minister of Finance, never ever signed such a guarantee.”
According to Barrow, the U.D.P. has been informally informed that its request for a meeting of the House of Representatives on May eighteenth has been accepted. In his interview with Nuri Muhammed, Prime Minister Musa said that he will be calling for a regular meeting of the House sometime in May.
