And earlier in the news we brought you the latest on the Saldivar Saga. But in his press conference last Thursday, he claimed that he isn't the first politician to be in a similar situation. He said that the current PM was once in his shoes with the Wikileaks incident back in 2011.
The long and short of it is that Wikileaks files comprise about a quarter million diplomatic cables sent to and from US embassies all over the world - copied en masse by a whistleblower and released on the internet. There was one cable in particular about a US Oil Company that had applied for a Production Sharing Agreement back in 2007 but was rejected, and claimed that the PSA went instead to a "politically connected local company." It then accused the then Minister of Natural Resources - and current PM Briceno - of accepting a bribe of US 1.5 million dollars from the company that was awarded the contract. And they said the money was routed through the purchase of a cable television business in northern Belize.
It was over ten years ago, but the PM maintains his position that he never accepted any bribes, and that the purchase of the company was done by the book - and that he has the evidence to prove it.
Here's what he told the media on Sunday:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Let's start with the obvious, don't you think that if the Barrow Administration felt that there was some kind of bribery, they would have taken me to court a long time ago? They were in the government 13 years ago, they had 13 years to be able to levy any kind of charges against me and they did not because they know it was a stupid thing. It was simply a disgruntled American, in many instances, an arrogant American that believed because he is an American he can get what he wants. He applied for an area to be able to do oil exploration and along with a Belizean group, I explained this many times over and over. When the Department of Environment takes all of the different companies that applied, it is sent to me and then I present that to the Cabinet. I as the minister did not make the decision to give it to company A or company B, that was a Cabinet decision."
Reporter:
"But you didn't accept any bribes?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I'm coming to that. And the issue of the bribe is preposterous and I wish that person could come to Belize and repeat that in Belize so that I can go and take action against him. It is well known that we bought a cable company in the north, I have issued to the then prime minister the mortgage documents when we borrowed 2.8 million dollars to pay for that company, you could ask Dean Barrow if I did not send him those documents, you could ask Jules Vasquez if I didn't send him a copy of the documents to show that my brother and I, our company borrowed 2.8 million dollars to be able to buy that company. I think it's preposterous, I think it's stupid, I think it's ridiculous and I wish that that person could come to Belize and repeat what he said."
7News has, in fact, been furnished with proof of the bank transaction described by PM Briceno.
