As soon as the Leader of the Opposition finished his presentation, several members of the Briceno Administration leaped to Michel Chebat's defense, since as you heard, Barrow questioned whether the Ministry needed all this additional money due to the Former Minister's maladministration of the Health Ministry.
They kept on insisting that he needed to do his research. Here's an excerpt of that part of that debate:
Hon. Julius Espat
"I heard you've been to Cayo South and Cayo West. Have you driven the Phillip Goldson Highway going to Ladyville recently? If you have you will see that a portion of the road had a problem because the retaining wall that was built under the United Democratic Party's tenure washed away. This money that is requested is an emergency fund because if not the highway will all fall into the river."
Hon. Oscar Requena
"The reality is that the UDP left this country in a mess and every single ministry including my ministry of rural transformation, community development,
local government and labour, in fact 14 months after being elected, we are still contemplating, still being given outstanding bills that were incurred under the UDP."
Hon. Kareem Musa
"If he would have done his research, he would know that under the ministry of health, line item that he is accusing the former minister of, it is that administration's bill that we are paying - 5 million dollars that they had spent."
Reporter
"When will we see all of the contracts and the bottom line for ourselves that we could assure our own selves that what you are presenting is the full and total picture, sir?"
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Well, I think maybe you may need to use the freedom of information act to ask for that information. Listen, there are certain things and I've explained it to your boss when he wants to see every check that the government... there are certain things that we can't do, that's not how you run the government. That is why we come to the house, that's why it goes to the way of the contractor general, that is why we have the auditor general - we have all of these functions to make sure that things are going correctly. What I can tell you is that with the same amount that Pablo Marin spent, the same amount of medicines that we bought in a time when prices have been going up, we saved over 3 million dollars."
