Toledo West Area Rep calls out P.M. Barrow on Castro cheques scandal
Oscar Requeña
As we showed you in Wednesday’s newscast, Minister of State Edmond Castro spent twenty minutes in the House reading a prepared statement to explain, or at least attempt to explain, his role in the BAA cheque scandal. He was able to do so because the matter was raised on the adjournment by member for Toledo West Oscar Requeña. While Castro maintained that what he did was in no way corrupt, Requeña disagreed… and the opposition member went directly after the Prime Minister, who he says has condoned the corruption which is rampant in his administration.
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Oscar Requeña, Area Rep., Toledo West
“What we must address in this honourable House today is the condoning and defense of the most reprehensible behavior, the behavior of corruption in public life. Mr. Speaker it is important that our public officers do not be prosecuted when in fact we know where the directives came from Mr. Speaker. There cannot be a different standard for the ordinary man and woman and a different standard for us who are elected to hold public office. Under the Prevention of Corruption in Public Life Act it is for the DPP to determine alone whether certain offences are to be prosecuted. Mr. Speaker it is important that we understand that no boasting of how much monies are going to be spent across this country are going to cover the bare face of corruption in this country. It is important that we know that. I want to challenge the government, if they are so confident, Mr. Speaker, let them go back to the people and renew the mandate. Let them go back to the people and renew the mandate now.”
Dean Barrow
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
“Corruption at full gallop…that is not the case here. And to the extent that there is corruption, we will continue to do our level best to stomp it out. And where it still continues to happen, we will deal with it as we have dealt with it in the past. In terms of your coming very close with respect to accusations against the member for Belize Rural North. I believe he will have something to say of his own accord. What I will say is this. It is as I told you when the leader of the Opposition raised the matter, and it is as I told the media outside. I knew that what was being said was a gross exaggeration of the truth. He told us about sixty checks. It turned out at the end of the day that with respect to the member for Belize Rural North you were talking about a grand total of three checks…one of them which was given to him for per diem with respect to his attendance in Salvador having to do with Belize Airports Authority business…the second of which was given to him with respect to the burial of his mother.”
“There cannot be a different standard for the ordinary man and woman and a different standard for us who are elected to hold public office.”
Amazing!! he is the first to speak of moral courage and decency that a country needs to survive, make him PM!
This old leadership of either party, jousts like lawyers knowing that any crime they do, their elite status gives them the privilege never to be accountable. And any crime their friends and family do, can be fixed.
The mere fact that Ali and the Admiral have blocked an honest investigation by the elected members of government condemns them. 3 checks? 60 checks? 6000 checks? who knows and who do you believe? The fox in the hen house? Ali and his 40?
Did not Ali say if a minister was involved in a few fixes to get passports no problem; but on a regular basis this was wrong by his own standard. It is not 60 checks, it is three checks. It is not two visas as a minister in five years, it is 20 per week. Ali you did not mention this….. Must have slipped your lawyer mind.
Put them in prison as ordinary men and women, either party, when they commit a crime, no special treatment, no favor or bribe can be secured.
The fact that this Area Rep is the only elected Mayan, having to tell the Queen’s colonial derivatives who are now the political elites, TO DO what is JUST and fair— says a lot.
Consider how either party has been screwing with the Mayans, and when the Mayans take their grievances to the courts and are fully vindicated; then government ignores what the courts have ordered them to do.
If GOB keeps screwing with the Mayans, by being fools treating them as fools, this could lead to the breakup of the country by spinning off Toledo. Ali seems intent to convert them from being citizens to adios Belize.
Considering the moral authority of Ali, he only has 40 and some wannabes to keep Toledo, if the Mayans block the roads and shut GOB down in the district; what can Ali possibly do? He can barely pay the government employees to sit at their desks. The Mayans know the area, they have been here long before the Pirates, Bayman, Kriols or Garifuna. Keep screwing with them and find out who will draw & suffer blood for their cause.
Since Booty man Castro went biblical, a comparison is indeed needed.
Oscar Requeña is more like David, and Ali falls like Goliath.
If there is no corruption why is there a need to stomp it out. What has the PM done about corruption in the past. I can understand what he is doing. If this PM admits that his ministers a thieves and crooks he will be forced to deal with them. To deal with them will mean that his cabinet would be bare because all of them would have to go. How could their account be so different from the amount of checks that is evidence. There are no words to express the ugliness of this government and the injustices being done to the people.