And those land transfers were made available - and we surely will be following up with Hugo Patt, but he didn't attend today's House Meeting.
But, deflect as he must, and tear it up if he will, it is the Prime Minister who called the Definitive Agreement binding in March.
Or did he? It sure sounded like that - but today he protested - he said that all this while he's been misquoted!:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"That is again, you all need to stop misquoting me, you love to do that, you just misquote what is convenient to you. What I was saying, when any substantive minister signs an agreement as the minister, that agreement tends to be binding, as I told you, I did not see the definitive agreement so I could not comment on the definitive agreement, I was speaking about the action of a minister. You may have policy that the minister would have to go through the committee, but that's policy. The law is that, as what Minister Fonseca read out from the lawyer, Donglas Mendez from Trinidad and Tobago, he said that on the face of it, it seems that it would be binding but until you go to court then you would know if it is binding or not."
Reporter:
"So then March 1st you said you hadn't seen it so when did you see it?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I saw it long afterwards because other people deal with that stuff, then when it was time to come to Cabinet, I went through it quickly and I said this has to go to the Cabinet for decision, to either accept or not accept. Immediately as the discussion started, we said we're not going to accept it and we moved forward, so I can't go more into details about cabinet matters."
Reporter:
"But the recommendation contained in that Cabinet paper was for it to be accepted."
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Can I repeat again, when you write a Cabinet paper, that's what you do, asking the Cabinet if they want to accept it or not, it's just that if the Cabinet is going to accept it, it went to Cabinet, nothing was hidden from anyone, everyone got a copy of the definitive agreement and then we had a very short discussion because immediately Cabinet felt that we didn't believe it was a good agreement."
Reporter:
"The attorney general had said that she had not contributed to the draft of the supporting legislation."
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Can we have another question?"
Reporter:
"That is an important question prime minister, it's going to come out if it's in a Senate Inquiry, sir."
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"It will come up because the point is not all of the, they attorney general is overwhelmed with work, many times we have to bring in legal work and other lawyers to come in and assist the government, that happens from Said Musa days to Dean Barrow days to presently right now. As we all know that the attorney general's ministry is overwhelmed and they can't keep up with the work so from time to time we go get other people to come in and help and that's what simply happened. We're not hiding anything, the attorney general was in Cabinet when she saw the document."
