We also asked the Prime Minister about the fact that there has not been a full and transparent disclosure to account for the 12 million dollars in contracts that the Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing issued. You'll remember how the country's network of roads was torn up after the impacts of the major hurricanes Eta and Iota.
The new government fast-tracked the repairs to those roads, but months later, the press still hasn't seen all the receipts, which was one of their manifesto promises before the General Elections. Here's the back and forth on that topic from last night:
Jules Vasquez
"I still cannot see Julius Espat's 12 million dollars..."
Hon. John Briceno - Prime Minister
"It's on the website. He just presented it to Cabinet about 2 weeks ago, all of them."
Jules Vasquez
"I've been begging."
Hon. John Briceno
"I'm glad that you bring that up because look at this. Here you have Imer Hernandez, you know how they say you were only to get one contract, end up getting 2 contracts. Imer Hernandez getting what, about 250 million dollars work of government contracts. Now, we're talking about less than 12 million, and we gave it to 48 persons. We spread it so you could create jobs for everybody, and you criticize that. You want to criticize just for criticizing sake."
Jules Vasquez
"No sir, because you committed to transparency."
Hon. John Briceno
"Let me finish."
Jules Vasquez
"Go ahead."
Hon. John Briceno
"What is happening, remember that we had a crisis in our hands. The highways were just broken up. Our sugar roads hadn't been fixed. The point is that we had to do it very quickly, and if we went through the tendering process, a month or 2 months would have passed, and we had to get it done, and we had to get it done quickly. And those contracts are going to be made available shortly."
Jules Vasquez
"Yes, but I'm saying that what you committed to I understand. Rome wasn't built in a day, but I have to be prying around to try to find out who is getting the contracts at the border. I should know this. It's not your money. It's our money."
Hon. John Briceno
"We are in government for 6 months. We have all of these crises that we have to be dealing with. Now, come to me in a year's time, and if you tell me that I'm not doing those things, then come to me. But, give us an opportunity."
Fact checking the PM on the MIDH spending - he said that the report was available on some mystery website - we checked the MIDH and the Ministry of Finance websites - and the long awaited, long promised but still undelivered report was not there.
