P.M. Barrow blames both Castro and Board of Airports Authority on distasteful checks
Dean Barrow
On Wednesday, the House meeting lasted more than five hours, and a lot came out of it. We brought you the meat of the day on Wednesday, but tonight we have the gravy. Swimming in that gravy is the statutory body turned personal piggy bank, which is now the subject of intense scrutiny. At the Special Sitting of the House, Prime Minister Dean Barrow seemed reluctant to say the ‘C’ word where the issuing of checks from the Belize Airports Authority to Edmond Castro et al was concerned. He called it distasteful, an error of judgment, a bad decision, wrong and even egregiously wrong…but he would not call it corrupt. In the House PUP leader Francis Fonseca revealed that he has more than sixty checks made out to Castro, his friends, family members and political causes. That’s a massively egregious wrong, but while his Minister of State has become known for those, shall we say…errors of judgment…Barrow gave equal measure of blame to the Board of the BAA, which authorized the withdrawal of pennies from the piggy bank. Anyway…the Prime Minister says that it will never happen again, especially where Castro is concerned.
FOR VIDEO CLICK HERE: CASTRO & BAA CHEQUES
Prime Minister Dean Barrow 
“I have spoken to the members of the airport authority, and I have told them that upon pain of being fired, not another check or form of assistance must be given to the minister. How they wah pay it back? it was legitimate in terms of the authority, of the jurisdiction of the airport authority to make contributions. That’s my point there is nothing illegal about it, there was nothing corrupt, but it is in terms of appearance very, very wrong. And indeed nobody in the public wants to know that a minister goes to a statutory body under his jurisdiction and gets money for A,B,C,D,E, F including for purpose of assistance for himself and for members of his family. The first thing that surfaced was that the minister got some money in assistance of his mother’s burial. Lord man, I mean again it don’t think it should have come from the airport authority but you can’t say that there is anything illegal bout that. So please let us be clear, don’t ask me in other words to fire the minster for being the recipient of funds that was given, with every authority to him by the B.A.A. The B.A.A. should never have done it. And if you ask me, in my due, he should never have asked them. And I think it is a serious error of judgment, but call it therefore what it is. But don’t, noh treat the puppy like a dog like Finnegan would like to say. What it is, is bad enough. Don’t make it worse. There is no corruption there. There is a terrible perception, the optics are bad. Man you must, look ya, better you shut up yo noh. You know that the judges of the court of appeal want a new building because of the horrible shoddy job that you did with the court of appeal. You weh take the property on Forest Drive, you weh hustle, talk about St. George’s Caye. So Mr. Speaker I say again, the leader of the opposition was perfectly correct in raising this issue. I think he went too far in describing it as not what it is and what it is, is bad enough. And I guarantee you that it stops from this moment on.”
luk like dis bredda reely loosin kantrol a di govament. ah wanda weh gat am so busy dat e no di ketch up pan e ministaz? A wanda if d addaz di hussle bigga fi mek e kant deh pan tap a tings? look like ah di ton di wandara now. mek a go sleep an stap wanda fi tonite.
Pm is covering penner and the director of immigration just becouse she is family to min. Contreras when mins .contreras and mins saldiver asaind her as director and asaind tisan from san ignacio to be the only one she can aproves chines visas 4 she needs to go not the officers .
This is a shame and disgrace. And the only reason Barrow dont want to fire these two is because he looses power. So in other words for Dean power is better than this people. Soon you will have civil disobedience. We need to get these people out of power. But we have a problem. We dont want P.U.P eighter. We need a third party people. Come on V.I.P charge up ur wagon its time for you to ride this horse. Ur time is now.
1. HOW DO YOU DEFINE CORRUPTION?
Generally speaking as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. Corruption can be classified as grand, petty and political, depending on the amounts of money lost and the sector where it occurs.
Grand corruption consists of acts committed at a high level of government that distort policies or the central functioning of the state, enabling leaders to benefit at the expense of the public good.
Petty corruption refers to everyday abuse of entrusted power by low- and mid-level public officials in their interactions with ordinary citizens, who often are trying to access basic goods or services in places like hospitals, schools, police departments and other agencies.
Political corruption is a manipulation of policies, institutions and rules of procedure in the allocation of resources and financing by political decision makers, who abuse their position to sustain their power, status and wealth. http://www.transparency.org/
I is a great pity what we Belizeans have to put up with when it comes to the conduct of our elected politician. The tragedy is the PUP are no different and may have been a slight bit more rapacious in their plundering of the public purse. I think it is approaching the tipping point when we loose all confidence in the present government. the opposition as a choice is even more distasteful, I feel almost like the proverbial dog the must crawl back and ” eat my own vomit” in the form of a MUSA-FONSECA regime that will have to be voted in by default the next time around.
Ali, look in the mirror. They are your men, they are YOU, chips off your block.
Long live Ali, king of Belizean thieves. A god amongst thieves.
Ali, Ali, Ali
turd float down the river, it is their new cruise ship carrying the UDP rats.
LOL, spoken like a fool, to fools, and us fools to listen.
“I have spoken to the members of the airport authority, and I have told them that upon pain of being fired, not another check or form of assistance must be given to the minister.”
It is not the piggy minister’s fault.
He must have help curbing his gluttonous ways.
Perhaps a booty call on the Queen will solve his problem.
Let’s call the French, the Queen is silent.
Perhaps another pain is in order for these corrupt government officials.
Gibbeting and guillotines might cut this cancer out from the soul of the country.
Or least boost tourism, for those who have a taste for public executions.
long live ALI BABARROW, king of thieves.
Rafael;
The present corruptions are examples of each of these categories.
People just tell me when and where to donate money for fire arms to **** these people up. I live in the US and the happiest day of my life was to renounce my Belizean citizenship and became An American. I rather be a ****ing ghetto citizens in American than be in my own f***king country with these bastards. I will stand by Belizean when they stop running their !**%ing mouth and start !**% up Dean and Musa instead of killing each other. When these madda $**!@#s die I wish somebody just run over the funeral box suh nuh even dem ghost come back.
All I can say to this lack of ….. that this PM is showing is “get the man out of office”. How can this man play off so lightly these horrific acts of corruption and like a parent scolding a child turn a blind eye.
What is he afraid that these ministers whom he cannot control have on him? Is the PM hand tied because he too is bilking the government. How many of his family members are on the government payroll for doing nothing but being related to him.
The US must be shaking its head in awe over this poor, inept leader who calls himself a Prime Minister. Oh if only I could be a fly on the wall in the American Embassy to hear what they really think of this high treasonous PM.
The PM should have said, ‘Pay all this money back! Stealing is stealing and we do not know it by any other word! I am sure when Castro collected the checks, he knew it was wrong, but he cashed them anyway!
The man should have instantly took away his ministerial post, but it seems we the people must suffer longer while these corrupt thieving mongrels rob the kitty, so Barrow can say, we no have money fe pay raise a pay! The boys need a lot more money to live when we kick them rass out a office and the PM is supporting them in that drive.
76 checks totaling some 116 thousand, 155 dollars and 19 cents, and issued between December 28, 2012 and September 11, 2013 to Castro. Using Barronomics terms of appearance very, very wrong, but not corrupt. These guys are used to sneaking off with millions, so a measly hundred and $116,155.19 is just very wrong!