Last Tuesday's announcement by cabinet that a public finances committee will be set up to review the social security's operations has done little to placate the groundswell of discontent that has erupted over the use of social security monies to finance private ventures. While on the 28 of August there was the protest of thousands of Belizeans to show that discontent, the pressure is not letting up.
Today, the United Democratic Party picketed the offices of the social security board countrywide in the hope of building more pressure for government to act decisively on the matter? that is, to have a commission of inquiry into the SSB scandal. Today we found them at the offices of social security in Belize City:
Alfonso Noble Reporting
“While today’s picket does not compare to the large number of persons who came out at the end of august, the opposition says that it is in this manner that they expect to keep building pressure on the Social Security Issue.”
Hon. Dean Barrow – Leader of the Opposition
“Basically this is to keep the pressure up. To reinforce the demand of the UDP that the prime minister appoint an independent inquiry into the social security scandal.”
“We’re hoping in this way to underline the message that we’re sure the prime minister got from the huge people’s demonstration.”
Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington - Picketer
“I am hoping that people are going to become even more aware that the situation is a very serious one. That their benefits are in problem the problem will not be able to get it when they need it. The more people become aware of that the I think the more pressure they are going to bring the minister”
“We are lending pressure out here and will continue to lend pressure so that the government will act and do that which the public is asking for, an independent commission of inquiry headed by the chief justice of this country to investigate what is going on within social security”
Hon. Anthony ‘Boots’ Martinez - Area Rep. Port Loyola
“You see grandmothers out here they are 83 years old and they can’t get their 75 dollars, that’s like 75 million to them and they take our money and they lend it to who they could.”
“ it is a turning wheel my brother, life revolves life does not end here so it’s a turning wheel. But I’m sure that the people inside there know about the injustices that have happened to people over the years.”
“I always say it’s not the size of the gun but the effect of the bullet. All those people who are 83, remember that they have children so it does not matter what really come out of it, so it’s not the size of the gun but the effect of the bullet. My grandmother used to say: don’t worry about the noise in the market, check the change in your pocket. The effectiveness of these things here. People across the board are not satisfied how they are handling the social security money.”
Wilfred Elrington
“People in power have got to be pushed to act they will not act automatically they will not act on their own and they will always want to protect their own selves. So you can’t expect the government to just roll over immediately and hark into the request of the people you’ve got to put pressure on them.”
And according to the leader of the opposition that pressure has built up to the point where he’s already had an offer from the prime minister on an inquiry into the social security scandal.
Hon. Dean Barrow
“I already have an offer from the government as to an inquiry. The government has sent a formal proposal to me. The prime minister sent Assad Shoman as an emissary. We are in fact looking at the proposal. I have not responded to the prime minister formally yet and so I don’t want to say too much at this juncture but anybody who would want to suggest that we are not achieving anything is blind or worse”
“It is absolutely clear that we are in fact very much in the process of achieving our objectives on behalf of the people of Belize.”
It’s in the name of the people of Belize, but the bottom line is that the UDP stands to benefit in political capital from this scandal. Barrow concedes to the politics of the issue and adds that while it may not be an election year he believes the Social Security scandal will be the government’s undoing.
Hon Dean Barrow
“The government’s popularity is at an all time low. Now while elections are not scheduled for some time yet, the internal tensions that are part and parcel of this whole atmosphere of crisis that has engulfed the government together with the external pressures that being mounted by the UDP and the people, we feel are likely to produce early elections.”
Hon. Michael Finnegan - Area Rep. Mesopotamia
“If the government fails to act what will develop out here is more pressure and more bad feeling about government’s bad faith. And you have to remember the more that continues the more unpopular the government becomes and then we’ll have to face an election. And at the end of the day, the people will decide.”
Hon. Dean Barrow
"Social Security is not even the half of it. When all the facts are known about DFC, in my view, that’s going to be a greater scandal than Social Security. But generally as well, the internal crisis in the PUP. We have the tapes now of what the prime minister said and what the former minister of finance, who appears to still be the de-facto minister of finance, said. They have flung down the gauntlet to the G-7, they have made it clear that they have nothing but contempt for G-7. That kind of internal crisis also is a factor that makes us feel that when everything is put together the government can’t hold for too very much longer”.
And while Barrow hopes that the crises culminate in a crescendo of ruin for the PUP, with three years left in this term, it’ll take more than the pressure of 70 plus persons and their placards to dislodge a Musa leadership that has been putting in work to ensure its political self-preservation. Reporting for Seven News Alfonso Noble.
The UDP held similar small scale protests countrywide. While Barrow has received a proposal by the prime minister into an inquiry, that is yet to be made public by government. For his part the leader of the opposition says that any endorsement of the proposal will be done in consultation of the social partners.