New poll shows public displeasure with U.H.S. debacle
Today Cabinet met in Belmopan and while the Musa administration spent much of the meeting trying to work out a “structured” settlement of the government guaranteed Universal Health Services debt, the Prime Minister has yet to face the public on the issue. The usual Cabinet release won’t be out until tomorrow, but sources indicate that part of the plan is to continue to pursue negotiations with the Belize Bank for better terms while at the same time try harder to salvage the collateral belonging to principal U.H.S. investors Luke Espat and Dr. Victor Lizarraga. We’ll defer speculation on what else transpired in Belmopan today until Wednesday when the Prime Minister is expected to make a statement to the public.
Meanwhile, with the issue so dominating the public discourse, over the weekend officials from the Society for the Promotion of Education and Research capitalised on the buzz by conducting a public opinion poll. Under the title “Voice of the People”, between Friday and Monday some four hundred and fourteen people were randomly selected from the B.T.L. phonebook and asked seven questions relating to the sovereign guarantee. This morning, SPEAR summoned the media to the Belize Institute of Management to share their findings.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
Programme Director Gus Perera was just one of the SPEAR pollsters who worked the phone lines this weekend to find out how many people agree or disagree with the way the Musa administration has handled the U.H.S. debt.
The questions posed to the public focused on transparency and accountability: that is, should the P.M. have gotten approval from the National Assembly and the Cabinet before the guarantee was given. On the issue of the People’s Participation, SPEAR asked participants if there should have been disclosure of the financial information to the public. Pollsters also inquired whether taxpayers felt that they should have to pay the debt. Other questions regarded who has the burden of responsibility for the current situation; what the impact of the issue has been on the people’s trust; and lastly, what is the public’s attitude towards calling elections now.
According to SPEAR, seventy-three point one percent of the people feel that the Prime Minister should have gotten permission from the National Assembly. Eighty-two point eight percent of those same people also feel that the P.M. should have gotten his Cabinet’s support for a bill to approve the U.H.S. guarantee before signing it, and eighty-seven point one percent wanted to see it for themselves, that is, that the documents should have been disclosed to the public. As for paying the money, eighty-five point three percent don’t want public funds to be used. And when it comes to laying blame for signing the guarantee, thirty-one percent said the burden of responsibility lies with the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, twenty-two point two percent said it was the Public Finance Committee’s fault, and thirty-eight point two percent feel that the P.M. is solely accountable. Fifty-two-point-four percent of the people polled had no confidence in the Government, thirty-four point five had low confidence, and nine point nine had high confidence. Finally, regarding elections, sixty-eight point nine percent want to vote now, nineteen point four percent disagreed, seven point seven percent didn’t have an opinion, and four percent didn’t know.
Gus Perera, Programme Director, SPEAR
“What this is doing is actually giving people to see where there is consensus, where there is consensus on the issues, how people feel on issues. And I think the polls if you look at it shows that, shows for example how strongly people feel about this issue of protocol that the P.M. should have gone to the National Assembly, gone to the Cabinet, but yet when it comes to the responsibility, they are also very much aware, they didn’t just in the same breath lump everything and okay, say that the P.M. only responsible for that, although they felt that the protocol was not—they looked at the whole. The results indicate that people generally feel that the responsibility is that of a government, they don’t feel that within a government a situation should exist where the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.”
But only last week, SPEAR used its own hand to write a strongly worded press release condemning the government guarantee to U.H.S. Perera says the organisation’s own feelings did not comprise the poll’s results.
Gus Perera, Programme Director, SPEAR
“The onus is not for us really to defend the integrity of our poll. We feel that it is something we have been doing. We feel that what we are providing here is a good compass, a leadership compass, and that who wants to pay it any mind or doesn’t feel like they have to pay it any mind, that’s a call that they make.”
And according to Perera, while the findings are definitive, he believes some members of the public may have held back their feelings.
Gus Perera
“In many instances, people used our call as an opportunity to really express how they were feeling about these issues. Personally I know some of the calls that I made to the districts, people were very verbal about how they felt about the issue and the whole issue of election. But I will say that I think Belizeans generally are a perhaps too patient, or compassionate people sometimes. But also on an issue like this, people could have been basically been vocal and just say no confidence at all, but I think people restrained themselves in some instances and just saying like, low confidence. And I think people are a little bit restrained I believe.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.
According to SPEAR, if and when the Musa Administration goes public with a response to the U.H.S. issue, the N.G.O. will consider conducting a similar follow-up poll.
