Strictly Personal

Barrow is Bogus
by glenntillett@yahoo.com
“The problem with this government is the fact of their undiluted corruption. Promises have been made by them that they have no intention of keeping; that they’re incapable of keeping. But I tell you any UDP government that I lead will never be engaged in corruption. As soon as it rears its ugly head, I personally will cut it off. And I will tell you I will sharpen a special machete with blades on two sides so that every time it springs up ‘right so’ I will chop it off. And if it means the government has to fall then so be it. Let the consequences be damned, the people of this country deserve better and I am determined to give them better.” Hon. Dean Barrow, November 18, 2004
“… Pass an unjust enrichment law that will make ministers of government and elected officials liable to prosecution, conviction, and incarceration for the acquisition of assets and visible wealth, or the practice of a lifestyle, that cannot be sourced to or justified by with the onus of such justification on the ministers and elected officials reference to official salary or private means that are established, legitimate and without conflict of interest.” Hon. Dean Barrow, May 11, 2005
The pages of our recent history are replete with examples of Dean Oliver Barrow’s siren songs of sickening hypocrisy when he was Leader of the Opposition, so much so that the two quotes above turned up after the most casual of searches of the record.
The counterpoint of the reality to the imagined intention of both is that we now have several UDP ministers who are visibly and apparently wealthy beyond the means of their salaries and perks, and visible wealth that cannot be justified by their economic and other financial status before their ascendancy to political office.
The consequence of Barrow’s naked hypocrisy is that we have been damned to economic, social, financial and political oppression by the FOB’s and SOB’s.
An entire nouveau riche class of privilege has been created in just the last two years, even as a much larger class of those who are being deprived of the “essential assets and opportunities to which every human being is entitled” has grown by leaps and bounds.
According to the soon-to-be officially released Government of Belize and the Caribbean Development Bank Country Poverty Assessment Draft Final Report 2009, 43% of us live in poverty as defined by the World Bank as “The inability to attain a minimum standard of living.”
In simple dollars and cents, the report says its assessment has found that over 140,000 Belizeans have trouble regularly finding the $5.50 minimum they need to meet their daily dietary requirements.
The study is shocking in its comprehensive detailing of Belize’s poverty – oh how it does count the ways and means! But even more shocking is the realization that those figures are already obsolete since Belize has been in the throes of a full-blown recession for over a year.
Dean Barrow’s financial brain rust (and yes, I have deleted the “t”) has decreed an across the board 15% cut for all ministerial budgets but he has not and will not do anything to stop the money hemorrhaging from the government’s coffers due to the corruption of cronyism, nepotism, insider dealings and plain old bribery and extortion that is so rampant.
Dean Barrow promised a “National Oil Company” but except for a nonsensical windfall tax he has done absolutely zero even as the windfall from our discovery of the black goal is being expatriated literally by the tanker full.
The least he could do is declare that all revenue from oil must be deposited in Belize before it is expatriated to Belfast. The net effect would add a few more dollars to depleted coffers.
But what should we expect when our leader is a snake oil salesman? Go on my friends, my colleagues, my readers, especially you Colin bh, go check Dean Oliver’s record of public utterances and match today’s realities with yesterday’s imagined possibilities for yourselves.
One reality today is that the promised sharpened double blade is the addled and doddered two heads that are supposed to steer the official watchdog integrity commission. These two former UDP House of Representatives members will now lead the charge against their erstwhile colleagues?
No play wid mi – Barrow is bogus!

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