68 days have gone by since OCEANA submitted a total of 22,090 petitions to the Governor General in June as part of the process to trigger a referendum for the people's consultation if the moratorium on offshore oil drilling is to ever be lifted. The Chief Elections officer was tasked to verify whether the 22 thousand petitions were valid or not and if OCEANA managed to meet the threshold. A day has passed since the deadline for the chief elections officer to validate the petitions and there's no word. So where does that leave OCEANA and this process which so many citizens committed to? Jomarie Lanza reports
Two months ago, Oceana submitted 22 thousand signatures to the Governor General in Belmopan. The petition is to trigger a referendum before any permission is given to explore or extract offshore oil in Belize.
The review of those signatures should have been completed and a response was due from the Elections and Boundaries office on the 28th of August, but
when we reached out to the Chief Elections Officer, Josephine Tamai, she told us, quote, "the Attorney General - who is principal legal advisor to the Government - had written to Oceana stating the Government's position on the verification. This is a legal matter I cannot comment on."
We reached out to Attorney General Anthony Sylvestre for comment, but he didn't respond.
We did speak with Oceana's Vice President for Belize, Janelle Chanona who directed us back to the Attorney General - she said she can't speak on bvehalf of the government.
So what will happen to the thousands of signatures that took such an extensive and exhausting drive to compile?
We go back to our June interview with Chanona when she underscored that this is not just symbolism:
Janelle Chanona, Oceana Vice President
"At the end of the day what this reiterates reminds and truly respects is that Belizeans since 2010 have wanted to be part of the conversation on offshore oil, part of decision and i think it is increasingly a point that this is environmental justice at the end of the day we will all be impacted whether we are a part of the industry or not by what fossil fuels are doing and i think it's critical for us as Belizeans of today and future Belizeans to have collective transparent well informed deliberations before we decide to go down that road because it is imperative that we reconcile. We will all be impacted by it."
But, will there be a referendum to decide future offshore oil exploration - or were all these signatures in these big blue boxes collected in vain?
We did get a late evening response from the Attorney General who says quote" The issue of Oceana's petition being submitted to the Chief Elections Officer for verification is one which has led to the Government seeking legal advice on. It is not prudent at this time for the Government to offer any comment on the matter."
And while he says they will seek legal counsel, we note there is no provision for that in the referendum act.
