Former mayor says $250,000 from city went to poor
As scandals go, the magnitude of the money involved does not begin to approach the level of previous debacles involving passports, telecommunications, BELIPO, or the D.F.C. … but the discovery that former Belize City Mayor David Fonseca helped himself to a quarter of a million dollars of city funds may be the clearest evidence yet of an administration that can only be described as out of control. According to Fonseca, the controversy amounts to much ado about nothing. Every cent, he told us this morning, was spent on the city’s poorest residents.
David Fonseca, Former Belize City Mayor
?As far as I am concerned, everything that we have done has been legal, on top of it. If there is anything fishy about this particular incident, why would I be signing for these things myself? I?m upfront with it, I signed for it myself. I didn?t put anybody else to sign for it or put it in under another name or anything like that, it was done by myself. So it?s nothing illegal that I?ve done. For me, I?ve heard out there people are talking about lock him out and that type of thing. The only crime I?ve committed is helping too many people.?
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
But whether he likes or not, former Belize City Mayor David Fonseca has a lot of explaining to do.
Zenaida Moya, Belize City Mayor
?Definitely, there were misappropriation of funds and we have the evidence to prove this.?
Since the new U.D.P. City Council took office earlier this month, an elaborate paper trail has revealed that during his term as Mayor Fonseca received more than two hundred and forty-eight thousand dollars from the general fund.
Zenaida Moya
?Please you know, come clean and he refused. He stayed here and he was adamant and he said it is not true. And so we just had to ensure that I showed him?we have originals of these you know.?
New Belize City Mayor Zenaida Moya says the money was taken as salary advances.
Zenaida Moya
?In the case of the two hundred and forty-eight thousand dollars, and I do have the complete figure here, those monies were in fact salary and/or loans made out to the mayor, of which he had informed the department that he would be paying in full. He never did however, and that is something that we did have a meeting with him yesterday and we asked him to please ensure that we get payment at the earliest, precisely because to even pay the salaries for our workers is a problem.?
But Fonseca claims he borrowed the money to help the poor of Belize City.
David Fonseca
?There is only one way of explaining it and that is David Fonseca. That?s the way I operate, if I am going to help you, I?m going to help you at whatever means. And even if it means now that I?it?s now hurting me … I?ve had it happen to me before, but that?s who I am. I?m going to the end to help you. If I have told you I?m going to help you, I?m going to help you. And that?s the only way of explaining it as far as I am concerned.?
?They were loans that were drawn by myself, parallel with the social assistance programme to assist the indigent person.?
Janelle Chanona
?So you went to a commercial bank and got a loan??
David Fonseca
?No, no, no, these were loans drawn on funds from the general fund of the council, general revenues that are derived daily by the council that was brought in, placed in our account at the bank, and we only have one general fund. And that is where the funds were gotten from to meet these programmes, and that?s what we did. They were done through social assistance and the loans that I drew on my name to deal with the magnitude of this request or demand.?
Janelle Chanona
?What kind of people were getting this money??
David Fonseca
?People that basically have nothing … you could say for example, Boots Martinez talks a lot about the mud and thing that people live in and what have you and that is definitely true. And I have not only talked about it, but I have lived it in dealing with these people, visiting them and going through the areas that they live in, people actually live on the ground, sleep on the ground and that type of thing. And I have tried to help them by getting them at least a mattress or some pieces of lumber in order for them to be off the ground and that type of thing. People that are unable to cope with medical costs or have a high number of children that are out of school, trying to get them into school and what have you. That type of thing is what we were doing up to the last day we were in office.?
But information obtained by News Five reveal that between July ninth, 2001, and the day before municipal elections, February twenty-eighth, Fonseca wrote out personal cheques in various amounts which he then cashed at the city cashier. Those checks were then deposited into the city council?s account at the Alliance Bank. But within days, the cheques were returned for insufficient funds. According to the new city council, those monies add up to more two hundred and forty-eight thousand dollars.
Zenaida Moya
?When he started receiving vouchers, some were five thousand dollars, six thousand dollars, three thousand dollars, four thousand dollars, figures like those. During that period there were no, and I repeat, there were no clinics?we call them clinics?so where those monies were going? I mean, what we do also know, and I will inform that there were salary advances. I mean, during April of ?03, that was the month after he came in, his second term of office, he got salary advances five times. And this was the case right along and we have records to prove that this is the case. So whether he was receiving those monies for the salary advances and so he needed money thereafter and he got those money from what is called social activities, that?s something that we are looking at, but it certainly looks as though they relate.?
Tonight Fonseca vehemently denies that he was not stealing from the city.
David Fonseca
?I have become basically broke. I don?t have any monies as we speak. The monies that were gotten under these loans and advances were not to me, I didn?t get them. It was all given out to the general public. I don?t have anything to lean on now, I have to rebuild. As I have moved into my new job, I will start to rebuild and hopefully I can help a few people as I move along. So that is where we are with this and as far as the cheques are concerned, it?s all tied in to this same programme, with me trying to assist and not totally being a hundred percent achievable and with the end result of them being returned.?
Janelle Chanona
?Now Mr. Fonseca, I have never been an accounting major, but why write out a personal cheque that you know is going to bounce then??
David Fonseca
?I didn?t … honestly I didn?t know that they were going to bounce. I would have thought that the funds from the loans would have been available for us to be able to cover it. But because of particularly over the last eighteen months, we have had a very high slowdown of revenues coming in, it was difficult to continue to maintain them. But nevertheless I continue to try to assist the people as they came in.?
Council records do reveal some inconsistency in Fonseca?s story as on September twenty-eighth 2005 he did make an effort to return some of the money with a fifteen thousand dollar payment. But in the wake of a meeting with Belize City Mayor Zenaida Moya, Fonseca seems to be unsure whether he should have to pay back the rest of the loan.
David Fonseca
?I am saying that they are not salary advances, but they were loans for these particular programme, for the social assistance programme. However, at the end of the day they are saying that they will send me a letter saying what their position is formally and then we take it from there. But if they are saying that I have to pay it back, then I will deal with it. I will deal with it.?
?If it boils down to the fact that we have to accept that I would have to pay it back, I would think that it would be me, it?s my name on the line, I signed for them so it would be me. And like I said earlier, I would work it out.?
Zenaida Moya
?This is a matter that can become legal and some persons are saying that it should be a legal matter. For myself, I am trying to do this and ensure that he comes in and pay, so that we don?t have to go the legal route. That is my thing. ?
According to Moya, the City Council did have a formal social assistance programme that spent around one hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars since 2003. If that was the case, the question arises of why Mayor Fonseca needed to embark on his own convoluted project of personal aid to the indigent.
