Last Friday, you saw the fireworks that exploded during the first part of the House of Representatives Meeting. It was during the PM's response to a question posed by the Leader of the Opposition about the definitive agreement. And it was during his answer that Briceno revealed an email he claimed was sent to the former UDP Attorney General, Michael Peyrefitte, with the agreement attached to it.
The email was reportedly sent from Peyrefitte's former law partner, David Morales, but when we asked him about it, he said the email address wasn't his. It was sent to minister@itc.gov.bz, which he told us today is the email for the former Minister of Investment Trade and Commerce.
Outside the National Assembly Chambers today, Senator Peyrefitte clarified that while he'd known there was an agreement floating around while the UDP were still in office, he never once saw it.
Mike Peyrefitte, UDP Senator
"Let me very clear once again. I have always maintained publicly that I knew that there was a definitive agreement going around when we were in government for Portico, because they actually try to have me signed one. I never saw one, I never read it, I never advised on it or anything like that, but I knew there was one, because they wanted me to sign one."
"When I say I was not aware of the definitive agreement, I mean I wasn't aware that it was signed. When we left government, I fully was assuming that because I refuse to sign it and because it never came up in any investment committee meetings nor ever went to cabinet, that it was not signed."
"The PM then read a letter that was sent to me that he claims that it was addressed to me, that said good day minister, I trust you have been keeping safe. I doubt very much that David Morales, my law partner at the time would have refer to me in that way."
"He said, I was instructed my Mr. David Gegg to forward the attached document."
"But this is emailed to Ministry of Investment, Trade and Commerce. This is not me. I never use that email, so clearly the prime minister was lying that he said that that was sent to me or maybe sometimes when you're caught, sometimes when you're nervous, you do things and you read things that don't make any sense."
"Let's just say it was sent to me, So what? the fact of the matter is, I did not signed it. I did not execute it. I told them hell no and he's trying to imply you see, trying to put up some smoked screen and some red herring around the situation. He's trying to imply that somehow I gained illegally from that definitive agreement or the signing of it, which is rubbish."
"I have been the one pressing it for the past couple months to have an investigation to look into why it was executed and to look at why it was brought to cabinet. So why would I do that, if I was involved with it in some nefarious way?"
"It was a desperate attempt Friday by the prime minister to say what he said. Notice, he choose to say it in the chamber where he know he has the cover of parliamentary privilege. I wish he had said some of what he said on the steps and then I would have collected for real."
And so since the email was addressed to former minister Tracy Panton, we asked if that in any way implicates her.
Mike Peyrefitte, UDP Senator
"No, it doesn't mercenarily mean that at all. When you're in government, people send you all kinds of things all day you know. Even if that agreement was sent to Hon. Panton at the time, that doesn't mean that Hon. Panton was involved in anything bad. She was sent a definitive agreement. So what? How she handles it is the question. The way I handled it, I said don't send that to me at all, send that to the Hon. Tracey Panton, because she is the chair and then she will then bring it to the investment committee and then to cabinet. That was the procedure and Portico knew of that procedure. So maybe they sent it to her after I told them don't send it to me."
