<div id="attachment_110988" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width:310px;"><a rel="nofollow" class="highslide" target="_blank" href="http://edition.channel5belize.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Barrow-on-Recording.jpg"><imgclass="size-medium wp-image-110988" title="Dean Barrow" src="http://edition.channel5belize.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Barrow-on-Recording-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Dean Barrow</p></div>
<p><strong>Today’s sitting of the House of Representatives was reserved for the presentation of the 2015-2016 Budget, the eighth of the Barrow administration. Later in our newscast we’ll have an extensive look at that, but first we deal with another matter which dominated the political scene inside and outside the House today. We refer, of course, to the private conversation of former party leader, John Briceño with his trusted friends Julian Chell Junior and Senior of Orange Walk. That conversation was clandestinely recorded and leaked earlier this week. In it, Briceño brings back old allegations of corruption made against senior party officials during the period he served as Deputy Prime Minister. Today, according to Prime Minister Dean Barrow, the initial disgust at the substance of the allegations in the recording has now been joined by outrage – outrage because P.U.P. Leader Francis Fonseca has declared that it will be handled as a private manner.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Prime Minister Dean Barrow </strong></p>
<p><em>“How in God’s name can the robbery of millions and millions from the public purse be private P.U.P. business? Those tens of millions were for the people, belonged to every man, woman and child in this land. Thousands of jobs could have been created with the millions that vanished in the B.T.L./Intelco Scam. Tens of thousands of deserving family members could have had homes built from the other millions lost in the Galleria Maya hustle. And the rest of the millions that disappeared from S.S.B. and DFC could have funded improved pension benefits for workers and social and medical care for all. On behalf of our democracy, on behalf of Belize, I therefore call on the leader of the Opposition to reverse course to stop the stonewalling, to halt the cover up. He must address immediately, fully and publicly the comprehensive wholesale indictment of the P.U.P. by its immediate past leader. Belizeans demand answers to the specifics of all the charges. The disclosures after all are made by one, who was there at the top, occupying a vantage point from which he saw, couldn’t miss and has now documented, every last piece of the P.U.P. down heap its mountain of stench and corruption. So Mr. Current Opposition Leader do not further dirty your office, do not further sully your person. You heard the pastor this morning make the point…you occupy a critical position under the constitution of this country and your obligations to speak now and come clear are care. Either discharge those obligations and do your duty or stand condemned forever before the bar of Belizean history.”</em></p>
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<p><strong>Today’s sitting of the House of Representatives was reserved for the presentation of the 2015-2016 Budget, the eighth of the Barrow administration. Later in our newscast we’ll have an extensive look at that, but first we deal with another matter which dominated the political scene inside and outside the House today. We refer, of course, to the private conversation of former party leader, John Briceño with his trusted friends Julian Chell Junior and Senior of Orange Walk. That conversation was clandestinely recorded and leaked earlier this week. In it, Briceño brings back old allegations of corruption made against senior party officials during the period he served as Deputy Prime Minister. Today, according to Prime Minister Dean Barrow, the initial disgust at the substance of the allegations in the recording has now been joined by outrage – outrage because P.U.P. Leader Francis Fonseca has declared that it will be handled as a private manner.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Prime Minister Dean Barrow </strong></p>
<p><em>“How in God’s name can the robbery of millions and millions from the public purse be private P.U.P. business? Those tens of millions were for the people, belonged to every man, woman and child in this land. Thousands of jobs could have been created with the millions that vanished in the B.T.L./Intelco Scam. Tens of thousands of deserving family members could have had homes built from the other millions lost in the Galleria Maya hustle. And the rest of the millions that disappeared from S.S.B. and DFC could have funded improved pension benefits for workers and social and medical care for all. On behalf of our democracy, on behalf of Belize, I therefore call on the leader of the Opposition to reverse course to stop the stonewalling, to halt the cover up. He must address immediately, fully and publicly the comprehensive wholesale indictment of the P.U.P. by its immediate past leader. Belizeans demand answers to the specifics of all the charges. The disclosures after all are made by one, who was there at the top, occupying a vantage point from which he saw, couldn’t miss and has now documented, every last piece of the P.U.P. down heap its mountain of stench and corruption. So Mr. Current Opposition Leader do not further dirty your office, do not further sully your person. You heard the pastor this morning make the point…you occupy a critical position under the constitution of this country and your obligations to speak now and come clear are care. Either discharge those obligations and do your duty or stand condemned forever before the bar of Belizean history.”</em></p>
View the full article