Chronology of Corruption

Taxpayer Money Used to Fund UDP Campaign?

As we go to press in the aftermath of the damning audit, Mayor Zenaida Moya is still lounging in her seaside mansion far from the mess in City Hall, the Councilors are all distancing themselves from the overwhelming stench of corruption, three workers have been suspended (in theory only), the Prime Minister is in Miami, the public is crying out for answers and for justice to be served and yes, there is still more than a quarter million dollars missing between the months of January 2009 and April 2009. As the leader of the nation, PM Dean Barrow, seeks exoneration in distance away from his once golden girl Zenaida Moya, it is important to chronicle the events which led to this day, and the Prime Minister’s absolute responsibility for taxpayers’ money which has gone missing.

A chronicle of corruption…

On August 21st of 2008, more than a year ago, then Councilor Mark King came public on national television and told Belizeans that Mayor Zenaida Moya was corrupt. He gave examples and cited instances. He held up documents and called the Mayor a thief. On August 22^nd, the Prime Minister of Belize, Dean Barrow, blasted Councilor King for his audacity in actually daring to speak out against the corruption in City Hall. King would in fact be effectively kicked out of the UDP for his revelations.

On September 25^th, just a month after, senior advisor to the Prime Minister and former UDP Prime Minister Dr. Manuel Esquivel went on national television, criticizing the fiscal management of Zenaida Moya and her lack of accountability and transparency. The Prime Minister’s response was that Esquivel was entitled to his opinion, and that was that.

On September 30^th, it was revealed that Mayor Zenaida Moya was fleecing the public coffers without authorization, paying herself an additional $3000 a month under the table. The Ministry of Local Government was called in by the Councilors, and an audit verified that the Mayor was guilty of the misappropriation of public funds. At around the same time, just before the UDP convention, checks surfaced which revealed that Moya had paid her brother’s trucking company almost $300,000 and nobody seemed to know what work he did. The Mayor herself gave conflicting stories. Throughout all this, the Prime Minister remained silent.

Just after the UDP Convention in October, though, when the Mayor was re-elected, Prime Minister Dean Barrow was not so silent. In fact, he sent for all the Councilors who had been condemning the Mayor for corruption and cracked the whip, telling them to shut up and back off or else. And that was that.

In November, the Prime Minister tabled what was dubbed the ‘Managing Mayor Moya Bill,’ a bill to tighten financial controls at the Council and ‘enhance transparency and accountability.’ The fact that stronger financial regulations had to be imposed on the Mayor became somewhat of a laughing matter.

In March of 2009, the Prime Minister was on national television stating that he would be keeping the Mayor on a short leash. Through all this time, the Mayor was close to completing construction on her multi-million dollar seafront mansion, a residence which to any rational-minded person is obviously beyond the reach of her ‘legal’ salary from the Council.

And now, in September of 2009, more than a year after the Mayor’s corruption was revealed by Mark King, Prime Minister Dean Barrow has stated that heads will roll, though he has not by any means made specific mention of Mayor Zenaida Moya. The PM is also busy pushing the hype that he has acted decisively and immediately against even ‘the whiff of corruption,’ though the reality proves that the whiff became a pervading stench more than a year ago, and the Prime Minister seemed content then to ignore it.

So what now…?

Another interesting point has been brought up by the audit – the fact that Council monies, taxpayer monies, were used to fund the UDP’s last municipal campaign. Anybody will tell you that the respective Party Secretariats handle the financing of their candidates’ campaigns, so it only stands to reason that the UDP hierarchy knew about the misappropriation of funds, and even sanctioned it.

As we close tonight, it has been revealed that the three persons suspended by the Council (minus the Mayor) can NOT be suspended. The action of suspending employees of the Council must come from the City Administrator who takes orders directly from the Mayor. The Mayor has not given those orders. The Prime Minister has also been lax in the blame game, speaking passionately about heads rolling but making no direct mention of the Mayor, though the audit has been completed, all the evidence has been compiled and he must surely know who is to blame for the missing monies at the Council.

Imagine this scenario – the three employees, Dwain Davis, Kiran Bhudrani and Patrick Henry, know too much about the activities of the Mayor, so she will hesitate to suspend them. The Mayor, quite possibly, can attest to the Prime Minister’s complicity, at least in the use of Council funds for the UDP campaign, so he is hesitating to bring the axe down on her head. This is possibly the only explanation of why nothing has been done though the investigation has been complete for more than two weeks now.

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