And from a seaweed swarm to invasive plant species, for the past few weeks, we've been telling you of the Diani Chan debacle- a small business owner who attempted to bring in plants prohibited under CITES regulations without a permit. It culminated in a call being made by the prime minister to Can's mother in law - who put him on speaker to talk to forestry officer, Daniel Chi. And after the PM felt that Chi was rude to him on the phone, the officer was penalised with administrative leave - though he was just doing his job.
The PM admitted that he stepped in to help Chan secure her shipment, and the court of public opinion is debating whether or not he should have gotten involved.
So we asked the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Natural Resources if he thought it was the right move - and while he deflected, he noted that such a situation should have never made it to the PM's desk to begin with.
Hon. Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources
"The prime minister is much like me, he is hands on, he is down to earth, he engages, he's fully immersed in matters and so I think if one of our ministers call him, he will quickly react and try to help. But the truth of the matter is that as ministers, we really should go to the prime minister as a
last resort. It really should be that as ministers, we should be able to call each other, and solve these problems and dealing with these problems. It's a challenge in the government, really, and it's my hope that ultimately as a government and as a public service, we are able to deal with things together, minister to minister, CEO to CEO, secretary to secretary, heads of departments to heads of departments. Really these matters should not ever reach the prime minister, but he's hands on, he's engaging, he will jump and try to help if a minister calls, particularly if it's a disadvantaged person or a small business person so I think that's the circumstances in which that occurred."
Reporter:
"Is it a conflict of interest that Diani Chan's mother-in-law is the prime minister's long time employee?"
Hon. Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources
"I don't want to get into all of that, I feel like that is political acrobatics. The truth of the matter is that this is a small country, everybody related, everybody know one another. If that would be a disqualifying thing that somebody's mother works for you or somebody's mother-in-law works for you, the truth of the matter is that you won't help anybody because we all related some way. So Belize is really small and it's just about trying to help and I think that's the spirit, the prime minister was trying to help."
Courtney Menzies:
"But do you think the Forestry Officer, Daniel Chi, was unfairly penalised for just doing his job?"
Hon. Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources
"Well, I think it's an ongoing issue, I don't think anything officially has come out of it, I think there's a process in the public service in how you discipline public officers and that usually takes a little time. Of course, there's natural justice involved. There has to be natural justice, whatever accusation is made, that officer is given an opportunity to defend him or herself. So that will be a little while I believe."
