And while the drama of King versus Moya stronged today’s headline, on any other day, our next story would have led the newscast. Government today announced what it plans to do with the ten million U.S. dollars in Venezuelan money. As has been reported, the Belize Bank refunded the money to the government of Belize, under duress 11 days ago. Since then, government has entertained two options: keep the money safe in an escrow account in case they have to give it back to the Belize Bank; or spend it on housing for the poor, and let tomorrow take care of itself. Well the Prime Minister today announced that his government will make the popular decision, because, after all, they have the money.
Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
“Lay persons say, possession is nine tenths of the law, in this case possession is ten tenths of the law. We are going to use this money for the people of Belize and let tomorrow, in so far as the continuing efforts of the Belize Bank are concerned, let tomorrow take care of itself. Mr. Speaker but both because of the intrinsic, inherent commitment of this government to transparency and everything we’ve done so far is proof of the absolute fundamental commitment of the government in that regard, both because of that but also because of the particular history of this money, the government will not simply transfer the money to the Ministry of Housing for the administration to do with it as it pleases. We are appointing a seven person committee comprising four Ministers of government and three persons from the private sector to recommend to government exactly how this money is to be spent.
Ought the money to be spent on a per district basis, ought it to be spent on a constituency basis, those fundamental issues will not be decided by the Cabinet of the UDP alone but by this public sector-private sector group, steering committee if you will, that we have chartered.
When their recommendations have come in to government and we are proceeding, perhaps a smaller committee but certainly retaining the membership of the private sector, of the social partners, will then take on a monitoring and oversight function so that if for example the larger committee says this is how you’re going to spend the money, we want it dispersed in tranches of perhaps $2 million at a time, the Ministry of Housing will have to account to that smaller committee for the way it has utilized the first tranche before it can get tranche two and so on as we go along in order to make absolutely sure Mr. Speaker that this money is properly spent, that there is value for the money and that the poor people of this country will benefit by $20 million.”
The oversight committee will be chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister with membership from the Ministers of Housing, Human Development and Foreign Affairs. They will be joined by a representative from the Chamber of Commerce, another from the NTUCB and one from the University of the West Indies in Belize.
