Earlier we showed you the stately portion of today’s House sitting, where the Prime Minister outlined his party’s reform agenda. But don’t take that to mean that it was all Mr. Nice Guy today. There was plenty raw and rough politics and most of that came out when ministers took questions from the Opposition.
The first was forwarded to the Prime Minister from Freetown Representative Francis Fonseca and it was about firings that have accompanied the change of government.
Hon. Francis Fonseca, Freetown Area Representative
“Can the Honorable Prime Minister say exactly how many open vote workers in the public service and or in publicly funded statutory bodies have had their jobs terminated by his administration since February 8th, 2008?”
Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
“I almost say Leader of the Opposition but I see the Clerk has had to paste over the sign in front of him. Obviously somebody had not reckoned with what happened at the convention. But in any event Mr. Speaker I really can’t tell the Member exactly how many open vote workers in the public service or in the publicly funded statutory bodies have had their jobs terminated. I don’t have a number but I can tell him that it is certainly not a quarter as many as the amount that was fired after the change of government in 1998.
But some of the reasons have to do, for example, with the fact that his government, and in particular him as Minister of Education had people hired who were doing absolutely no work and being paid for doing nothing and I will give him some examples. Emilio Zabaneh whom he hired as a teacher down in Mango Creek. For two years he collected his teacher’s salary and never reported one day to work.
I just ask the questioner to remember there was an election on the 7th of February 2008 and consequent upon that election, cleaning house, which was the mandate given to this government, has started and will proceed.”
And Deputy Leader of the PUP Mark Espat also did his part, by asking
Utilities Minister Melvin Hulse if BEL will get a rate hike.
Hon. Mark Espat, Albert Area Representative
“Will the Honorable Minister of Public Utilities offer his unqualified assurance to this House that any request for tariff increases by Belize Electricity Limited will be rejected by the Public Utilities Commission and by him?”
Hon. Melvin Hulse, Minister of Public Utilities
“For ten years my friend from the Albert sat down in here and made the price of electricity gaan up, up, up and he never one day talked about that. Now, and it is like you don’t know better my brother, now you will ask me a question: ‘will the Minister make sure that nothing happens again.’
There is a Public Utilities Commission Act of 223, revised edition 2003. That is why we repealed, 141 OF 2007, you were making BEL put in $30 million extra flipping charges they never deserved. And because that was repealed, the PUC in its independent evaluation and assessment of what was produced was able to tell BEL at this point with what you are producing, we can’t and will not agree to an increase in rates.”
