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Sep 15, 2006

U.D.P. to boycott Monday?s State of Nation address

Story PictureIn news from the political front, today Barrow and the United Democratic Party have also announced that they will boycott a special sitting of the House of Representatives scheduled for Monday morning in Belmopan. While the U.D.P. has made it a tradition to be absent from the event, citing that a sitting outside the confines of the National Assembly is not valid, this afternoon Barrow says this year the party’s non-appearance is in response to central government’s Celebrations money payout to members of the People’s United Party instead of the U.D.P. municipal leaders.

Dean Barrow, Opposition Leader
?In most of the municipalities, after the complaints from our side, things worked out but in others, that was not the case. In particular, in Corozal where Minister Marin insisted on taking the money and absolutely throwing out the programme that had been agreed with the National September Celebrations Committee and doing his own thing. In Cayo, almost the same thing happened. Mario Castellanos who is a deputy minister or something of the sort made it plain to the municipality, the committee and the town council that they could take care of the tenth but when it came to independence, he Mr. Castellanos would be in charge. That caused a great deal of upset and as a result, the U.D.P. is going to boycott the joint session of the National Assembly of which the Prime Minister is going to deliver his state of the nation address. That means not only our parliamentarians are not going to attend but mayors who had been invited as special guests will also not attend, so it?s a sad state of affairs. On the positive side, the U.D.P. in Belize City has in fact accepted the invitation of the National September Celebrations Committee to participate in the Independence Day parade and I think that?s a step in the right direction. But we are operating on the basis on which we try to make a distinction between something like the actual official activities on Independence Day, which those activities have to be for all of us and something like the Prime Minister?s state of the nation?s address, which however you want to look at it, in the end comes down as being political.?


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