And the leader of the opposition is supporting Petillo. Shyne Barrow says his name is on the protest permit and that he has been supporting Petillo's effort from the beginning of the week. He spoke to us in our studio and took the tough questions:
Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
"There is great resentment, great outrage by the people of this nation, none of the answers that the cabinet or the government has given makes any sense whatsoever. So it's really a preposterous set of lies that the Briceno administration has given to the Belizean people and the civil society, different activists like Nigel Petillo, people from the diaspora."
"Every right -thinking Belizean is outraged at this act, this brazen act of corruption and we call on the prime minister to reverse it. He played dumb, deaf and blind when you spoke to him and said that he didn't know anything about it and we appeal to him that know that he does know about it, know that you have done such a fantastic job at your journalistic investigations, that he would concede that it's a bad idea and go back to what he presented in the House of Representatives."
"We will protest on Friday at the Prime Minister's office and we will protest every week until he changes this wrong -headed decision."
Jules Vasquez
"However, what's irregular here is that the full amount, the full purchase price has been paid, so there's no reversing the transaction."
"Mr Zhang has received his payment for the negotiated price and there's no reason for him to give that back."
Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
"Well maybe we need to look at legal action, you know those of us, the opposition as well as civil society, maybe we need to come together, so we'll definitely be studying that prospect that we would sue to get that money back."
Jules Vasquez
"How would you answer the criticism that will inevitably mean that the UDP is jumping on Nigel's bandwagon, trying to crawl into his slipstream because it is unable to itself pull a crowd to a protest, so it's hoping that Nigel can."
Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
"Brother, I believe in partnership, I believe in working with civil society and so I commend Mr Petillo for wanting to partner with all stakeholders and I believe rather than the UDP do their own thing, to me it's better to embrace all of civil society."
"But I have been a part of this from the very beginning, he reached out to me and told me listen we need to do something and rather than make it a political protest, I believe the smart thing to do is to make it a national protest, everyone joining in."
