P.U.P. Party Leader says PAC meeting is illegal
Francis Fonseca
When News Five caught up with the Leader of the Opposition Francis Fonseca on Thursday at National Service Day activities, we also got an update from him in respect of the Public Accounts Committee. The chairman of the PAC is Julius Espat, who is also the Deputy Party Leader of the P.U.P. Espat says he won’t be there on Wednesday when the Committee meets. The committee has since elected Minister John Saldivar as pro tem chair and the other members are all cabinet ministers. But without the Opposition there would be no check on balances in the PAC which is mandated to scrutinize public funds. Fonseca calls that meeting illegal.
Francis Fonseca, Leader of the Opposition
“Obviously we are not interested in any illegal meeting that is being called on September twenty-third. We believe that it’s an absolute joke and we certainly do not believe that anyone should lend legitimacy to what the government is attempting to do—which is to take over the executive; takeover of the Public Accounts Committee; executive takeover of oversight. If we place this in the context of what is happening at the Dangriga Market, it is almost a joke. You have this scandal taking place with the Dangriga market and the Social Investment Fund and on next week Wednesday or whenever it is, on the twenty-third, they will be sitting down there and talking about things that happened in 2003, ten years ago. Absolute nonsense and absolutely a government guided by political desire to damage the opposition. That’s what it is; not solving any problems of the people of Belize. So we have made it very clear, we are going to the people. We are not wasting time with a U.D.P. government that is not interested in reform.”
According to Fonseca, the party will be traveling across the country taking their vision and plan to the Belizean people. Aside from the PAC, Fonseca says that they will also be addressing the education reform, health reform, economic reform, job creation, culture, arts—all of these issues will be presented to the people on the P.U.P.’s agenda for change.
