There is much discussion and even a law suit in the courts of Belize over the almost $300 Million disbursed by the socialist government of Venezuela to the ruling United Democratic Party of Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow since 2008.
Whispers of wide-spread corruption, featherbedding, misappropriation of funds and personal enrichment have been levied against the Belize government and its insiders in this lucrative enterprise. No audit or disclosure of how the monies are being expended have been forthcoming to date. Now G.O.B. has awoken and put out its version of the PETROCARIBE crisis.
Belmopan. October 29, 2014. The Government of Belize deplores the suit filed by the Opposition PUP against the Petrocaribe program, as an abuse of the process of the court. This unpatriotic attempt to play politics with a breakthrough program that is of vital national financial and developmental importance, in truth has nothing to do with the law.
The question arises whether the Petrocaribe initiative, restarted by the current Administration with such spectacular success, is at all a loan agreement requiring National Assembly approval. It is a special commercial and diplomatic arrangement under which our sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela sells Belize petroleum on terms that oblige us only to pay a part of the purchase price upfront, and keep the rest as credit to be paid instead on installments over 20 years. Certainly when the program first began under the PUP in 2005 it was never taken to Parliament, and there was never any accounting of how the financed portion of the petroleum purchases was spent by the then Government, or even how much it amounted to.
Out of an abundance of caution, however, and because there is nothing to hide from a Government that has repeatedly told the public of the multiplicity of infrastructure and social projects being paid for out of the Petrocaribe program, the current Administration has introduced into the House a motion to treat the funds as a loan and authorize borrowing in that regard. The motion has already been approved by the House's Public Accounts Committee, and should easily be approved by the full House at its meeting next month.
In any event, the Petrocaribe spending has been included in both National Budgets since the program's restart, and the Budget Speeches include copious references to the particular programs funded by the Petrocaribe. The program is also highlighted in the 2014/2015 Budget as a source for drawdown to cover that fiscal year's financing gap. This last Budget also identified by name and amounts the payments it authorized for the servicing of the Petrocaribe credit facility.
The supposed legal bases on which the PUP court action is stated as being brought are thus, on any reckoning, utterly without merit. All they say they are complaining about is already taken care of, or in the process of being taken care of by the National Assembly.
This is why the Government absolutely rejects the Opposition attempt to derail or throw mud on the record breaking progress that this Administration's handling of the Petrocaribe funds has achieved. Apart from keeping the Belizean people informed right along, Government accounts as well to our Venezuelan partners as to the purposes for, and manner in which, the Petrocaribe monies are spent.
Government will, then, on behalf of the Belizean people resist with every resource this legal fig leaf being employed by a party on the wrong side of history and against the continued uplift of our country.
End.
