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Municipal Elections are six days away, and you may have noticed an increase in the numbers of openings, inaugurations, and groundbreakings by the ruling party over the past month or so.
A lot of it has been chalked up to electioneering - which is when a political party engages in a flurry of activities as a part of campaigning. However, if you ask any politician, they'll deny that it's something their party does. And today, Minister Kareem Musa rejected the claim that the past few events you've been seeing have anything to do with the elections. He said that, in fact, the government has these types of events regularly, it's just that the media doesn't cover them.
We'll give that one a double eye roll, but is it all being financed through taxpayer funds? That's what we asked him.
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"I think that whatever resources have come from Central Government, it is over time and it is distributed equally to the San Ignacio as well as other town councils have been beneficiaries, I see the BTB inaugurating a huge project that they're doing on the riverbank, I want to applaud them for them and so there are different initiatives all across the country and I don't think there is any electioneering. I know that you always raise the issue with me when it comes to streets but what we have to reminded of, for Belize City I'm speaking, just within one year this particular Belize City Council has repaired 87 streets and I know the media has not been following all 87 streets but those were not built in a month, those were built over the course of an entire year and so there's a highlight, there's a focus by the media this time because we're a few days away from elections but it's not electioneering, the track record is there, the record of our mayor in Belize City is there and you just need to go and visit all the streets that they have done in just one year."
Reporter:
"Sir, but we know how politics is, we know electioneering is a thing, and it's not a PUP thing, it's a PUDP thing. You're saying that none of these events that have been popping up lately, because we have been invited to a lot of them, are not part of electioneering?"
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"And that's my issue with the media, you all do not attend any of these events, like when we are opening a station. I can recall substations open that you all did not attend."
Reporter:
"Maybe we can't go to all but we go to as much as possible."
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"That's what I'm saying, that the media now, because it's elections, will come to the various openings to ask these various questions whenever we have an opening, for example tomorrow we're opening a wellness center for the police department, I hope to see you there."
Reporter:
"I hope we get an invitation."
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"Yes and I'm sure you will but these things happen on a weekly, on a monthly basis that we're opening things but the media only comes around because it's election season to ask these very questions. You know our record, especially the police department, we invite the media to all our events, even to our Compstat meetings, we invite the media, they don't come, sometimes Channel 5 comes, sometimes Channel 7 comes, but I'm just saying not because it's election season the media should pay attention, you should pay attention year round."
