Since August of last year the Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate irregularities in the Development Finance Corporation has not had any public disclosure. At the time it reported that it was sifting through all manner of documentation from the DFC but since then little has been heard of the Commission.
Today that long silent spell was broken when Commission Chairman David Price appeared on Krem's WUB talk show and disclosed that the commission may be silent but the work continues. He today told us the same and added that while the work is ongoing there is only one thing that is holding up the process a bit. That is the issue of the forensic auditor. Price says that because the February 11 2005 agreement signed between government and the NTUCB called for an forensic auditor to be brought in from abroad. But government has since shot the idea down claiming that it cannot afford it. Now the NTUCB is looking at a local auditor and there is where the process stands today.
David Price, Chairman - DFC Commission of Inquiry
"The unions agreed to a local auditor but they felt that since the original terms of the agreement had stipulated a foreign auditor that there ought to be a formal amendment to that agreement. So we are waiting for that happen before we then go into the appointment. The commission itself will not be responsible for its appointment, although the unions are requesting that we do have a say in who that firm is. In any case, as a result of the finance and audit reform act, that individual will have to be procured through the tendering process. I think the process could have been accelerated by both parties, government of Belize and the TUC. So there has been some unnecessary delay. Whether it
is deliberate or not, I don't wish to speculate on that."
Alfonso Noble,
Has any work been done, any substantial work other than waiting for the forensic auditor?
David Price,
"What the commission has done is a variety of efforts. We have summoned a wide range of documents from DFC which we have received. These documents include loan files, especially of the larger loans, and you know what the larger loans are; the $30 million loan, $28 million loan, and others of that variety. We are going through those files, the commission, even as we speak and those files are huge volumes. So if you look behind you there, you will see some of those files that we have procured. We have also procured minutes of the board of directors meetings in that six-year period which we have gone over.
We meet weekly, two or three times per week, in formal sessions to discuss our findings. We go over them individually, we don't go over them as a group. We have requested additional files such as all the legal contracts that DFC entered the period 1999 and 2004 so we are also going over those. We have also requested recently the details regarding the recent developments that have taken place under the new board of directors under the new chairman. We have met a little bit of obstacle with that because the Chairman has been advised that we are requesting is outside the purview of the commission. Our legal interpretation is that we are requesting relates to those loans that were approved in the period 1999 to 2004.
It's important that we conduct our work as expeditiously as possible. It is also important that we get the details of these recent developments because they do impact on those loans that were approved during our period. The DFC has provided us with a list of those loans that have been written off. According to the DFC they have been written off but not forgiven and they are still pursuing collection of these through the courts and through Credit Master's System. But when I look at that list of loans that have been written off, as you said, a large number of them are student loans. A smaller number of them are agricultural loans. We need to get some to questions what are the criteria is the selection based. Why were some written off and others not written off? We are supposed to have a meeting with the DFC Chairman very shortly where we will pose these questions to him. But it is critical that we get to the bottom of these as well."
Alfonso Noble,
Mr. Price because of the volume of work and the intricacy of the work, do you at times feel like you're a mere weevil in a mountain of grain?
David Price,
"That does tend to set in, yes. The work is voluminous. There is a lot of it. I am not a trained lawyer or accountant or a finance person but I've been an educator for more than 25 years and so I stay at it and read them. Mr. Lord is a trained lawyer and Mrs. Martinez, the other commissioner, has training in business. So between us, we feel that we are making some progress but we still need the forensic auditor."
Price noted today that he is in dialogue with the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee investigating SSB, Senator Godwin Hulse as some of the aspects of both investigations overlap with one another. As Ptice noted the public hearings are scheduled to begin by July of this year.
