Earlier in the news, you heard Prime Minister Briceno's defense of Area Rep. Marconi Leal, whose role in getting customs clearance for a stolen vehicle has become a public matter.
Now, the current PM and his predecessor have very little in common, but their defense of parliamentarians being connected to shady deals does have a similar ring.
Today, when we heard the PM defending member of parliament Marconi Leal - it sounded very familiar. So, we went digging in our archives to find the comments of the former Prime Minister's defense another Belize Rural North Area Rep, Edmond Castro.
You'll remember it as the saga when a whistleblower alleged Castro was writing fistfuls of recommendations for visa applications by Asian Nationals.
And Dean Barrow back then sounded a lot like Briceno today when he made the defence:
Hon. Dean Barrow, Former Prime Minister
"The lady had said Castro is responsible for 200 Visas. Now I hear you produced letters of recommendation for how many? 20, 21, 22. Man in the normal course as I said ministers are ask to do recommendations for all sorts of things including American Visas, jobs and so on. 22 or 25 or whatever is a far cry from 200."
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I think as representatives, we get all sorts of requests. And by him asking for consideration, it does not - he does not have the authority. He does not have the authority to instruct the Customs Department to do any such thing. For him to ask for some kind of assistance, that's what representatives do every single day. Now, it was left now for the Customs Department to decide whether they wanted to do that or not. Thank you very much, everybody."
