In political news...
9 days ago, we showed you the official swearing-in of the Commission of Inquiry. This is the investigative team that Prime Minister John Briceno has tasked to look into the disposal of government assets by the Barrow Administration between October 2019 to November 2020, their last month in office.
This inquiry was commissioned by the Prime Minister because the Public Service Union sounded the alarm shortly after the General Elections alleging that government assets, including vehicles and other equipment, were allegedly being sold off for a fraction of their value.
The Commission of Inquiry has scheduled its first meeting for next Monday, February 15th. And who is their first witness? Well, no other than the previous Minister of Finance, basically the only man who can authorise the sale fo a government asset, former Prime Minister Dean Barrow.
On that same day, the Commissioners also want to hear from Joseph Waight, the Financial Secretary; and Ruperto Vicente, the head of the Vehicle Care Unit.
This afternoon, the press had an opportunity to speak to Senator Michael Peyrefitte, the UDP Chairman, and former Attorney General who served in Prime Minister Barrow's Cabinet. Here's what Peyrefitte had to say about the Commission's summons to his former boss:
Michael Peyrefitte, Senator
"He has to show up, Commission of Inquiry has summoned you to appear, he will appear and I am sure that they will probably be sorry they asked him to appear. I think you know that the RT Hon Dean Barrow is more than capable of handling himself so we look forward to that dog and pony show because I can't understand why a Commission of Inquiry would want to summon a former prime minister to explain something that you can easily get the record for from the financial secretary. If you want to find out what happened in ministry, the minister is not the person that you summon or ask, there is a management team that's comprised of the minister, the CEO who is the appointed officer, the finance officer and the administrative officer. If you want to find out what happened in the Ministry of Finance the person you summon is the financial secretary, he has all the record. But what the PUP wants to do is to create a distraction, they're all about creating distractions at this point because they want to change the conversation, they want us to not talk about the people they're firing, they want us to not talk about more people they're going to fire, salaries are going to be cut for government officers, they cannot figure out a way to grow the economy, they cannot pro ide for free education and none of the things they said they were going to do they can't do, they cannot do a simple thing as to raise the minimum wage to $5 an hour, none of that they can't do, so what do they do? They have to create a distraction, they have to create red herrings for us to forget about the fact that they are already doing a terrible job at governing this nation."
Today, we asked former Prime Minister Barrow for a comment on his summons before the Commission and via WhatsApp, he told us, quote, "I absolutely will attend. Indeed, I will be happy to do so. I don't know where all this talk about wholesale, fire-sale disposition of assets came from… If things happened without my knowledge and approval, I too would like to find out. To repeat, I absolutely look forward to Monday." End quote.
The first meeting will take place at the House of Culture, and because the public or the press cannot attend, the session will be live-streamed by the Government Press Office via its Facebook and YouTube pages. 7News will be following it closely, and we'll share the highlights with you on our Monday newscast.
