It's a financial loophole widely used throughout government: any disbursement under ten thousand dollars avoids the strict vetting protocols and the red tape of the Ministry of Finance. While the policy is meant to expedite routine spending, it has effectively created a blind spot for corruption, allowing millions of dollars to be stealthily siphoned out, entirely beneath the radar of Ministry of Finance oversight.
Tonight we review Smartstream screenshots leaked to 7News that show payments - presumably for fruits and vegetables - made primarily from the Ministry of Defence to the sister of former Minister of State Oscar Mira. The entries we have seen suggest conflict of interest, nepotism, and deliberate procurement fraud designed to bypass Ministry of Finance oversight. Jules Vasquez reports:
The process of supplying a Ministry usually begins with a tender document like this listing the items and the quantities - this one for Mira's Fresh Fruits and Veggies.
These 47 screenshots that capture payments made to Jenny Shubra Mira (Vendor ID A000426424) during the period December 2020 to August 2025.
Of the many we reviewed one of the most remarkable days is September 14, 2023: twelve Ministry of Defence invoices were approved for payment to Jenny Mira - who is the sister of the then Minister of State for Defence, Oscar Mira.
These invoices were all approved for payment leading to a combined total cleared in 24 hours of BZ$103,237.58.
A single, large payment like that would have required approval from the Ministry of Finance but breaking it down into 12 invoices floating at around $9,500 each puts it beneath the oversight radar.
Of the 497 entries we reviewed between 2020 and 2025 only four were over ten thousand dollars - and one of them was cancelled. That was on the 22nd of April 2025; cancelled and then 48 hours later two new invoices appeared: one for $9,270.77, the other for $8,838.49. Add them up and what do you get? The same amount as the original cancelled invoice: $18,109.27. The difference? Those smaller payments never had to get approval from Finance.
The records leaked to us reveal the systematic abuse of a loophole enabled to move a total of 1.7 million dollars into a single vendor account over a five year period. There are hundreds of rows of transactions still not visible to us - so the total may be greater.
Tomorrow, we'll look at other notable irregularities with these hundreds of payment - which were not just made to the Ministry of Defence.
In total, ninety-nine percent of those four hundred and ninety-seven individual payments stayed safely under that ten-thousand-dollar red line.
