PON DI GULLY SIDE

Two years of Success, he says
By anthony sylvestre

So after months of saying nothing and doing nothing while Belizeans were being killed in their homes, killed in the streets, losing their jobs, businesses closing down, gas prices continuing to rise above the $7.00 threshold he said would never happen, the Prime Minister finally spoke  yesterday. If I understood the Prime Minister yesterday, he was basically telling Belizeans to just expect more of the same mada…ss that abounds right now in the country.

Now, you want to give the Prime Minister some slack. What, after all, he, constitution ally will be deciding our collective destinies for the next three years at least- I hope he doesn’t take that 3 months bratta the constitution gives him.

But how can anyone seriously have any sense of hope that things will get better or that the whiff of corruption will be cleansed  or take the Prime Minister serious when he beats his chest and  “make[s] absolutely no apologies” for giving his ex-wife all the government cases; when he  with a straight face try to defend why he won’t revisit the BNE oil contracts;  when he tries to blame the Financial Secretary Joe Waight for the $60 million shortfall; or when he says that his colleagues in cabinet when given the chance to look at the budget estimates, will “come up with shaft of brilliance to enable us to get over the hump.”

Barrow’s justification (really and truly it is more hogwash, but…. ) for giving his ex-wife first choice as GOB’s lawyer is unbelievable. Firstly, according to him, just about every other lawyer in Belize is “in the pockets of Michael Aschroft.” Now the man di tek dis virus thing too far, and obviously thinks Belizeans are fools. Big man, everybody knows that you would only give UDP lawyers the GOB cases. So then, are you suggesting that all the other UDP lawyers, except for your ex-wife and the other two attorneys who were present at the press conference, are in Ashcroft’s pockets? That’s a hell of a thing. You are saying then, that your fight with Ashcroft in public is a farce then?

Then the Prime Minister tried to further rationalize giving his ex-wife the majority of GOB cases to do by saying that she charges at the regular rates of senior counsel and that she use to do a lot of pro bono work when the UDP was in opposition. Now check this out, the man refused to say how much she has made and is making from the public coffers and he  refused to say how much she is making as BTL corporate secretary or as the Chair of the Social Security Board. What happened to this mantra of transparency? And by the way, as a colleague reminded, pro bono doesn’t mean you are to collect later.

But I suppose, you have to admit that our Prime Minister is an amazing man. Ah mean, it has to be a specially amazing man who has a deficit of talent in his cabinet who would  with a straight face tell the Belizean public that his cabinet colleagues will spew brilliance and come up with ways to plug the $60 million shortfall in the budget. Isn’t this the same cabinet which has been sub-grouped into committees for housing, crime, cost of living, etc, etc, etc. and hasn’t come up with anything tangible, meaningful or helpful to the Belizean public to lessen their pain and suffering?

Everyone knows that there is no brilliance in that cabinet. Barrow made a fruedian slip with that statement. He knows well that what he and his Cabinet has in store for us: it is a shaft indeed, a bukut fi true with the increase in taxes that he will ram on us.

Which now brings me to ponder: why on earth does our Prime Minister, who, in his own words, yields to no one, refuses to take on the oil companies? The least he can do is to give us some oil. Why doesn’t he just tear up the petroleum contracts that the oil companies signed with the previous PUP government. Ah mean, Barrow has ridden the wave of populism so far denouncing and decrying every conceivable agreement and arrangement the PUP government entered into or did. So how is it now that he realizes that interfering with binding contracts entered into by the previous administration is “counterproductive and  against the interests of the people of this country?”  I don’t recall he was bothered by this when he nationalized BTL. So who determines whether these agreements will be legal or binding? He does all of this?

The point is, Belizeans are not red-eyed over the “oil money” as Barrow or the oil companies would assert. I think there is common understanding that yes at the time of entering into the contracts with the oil companies, there was a risk factor involved and so the profit sharing agreement reflected that. But now, since there has been stabilization  (sounds more like profiteering) for the oil companies, surely, GOB, being sovereign and all that good stuff the Prime Minister is always fond of reminding us of, surely GOB can summon BNE to the table and renegotiate the profit sharing agreement. BNE’s  CEO was on the television the other day saying that they are open to that. So, how come our Prime Minister, who yields to no one, will not explore that possibility now, in these austere economic times, when he is already short by $60 million to run the country  for the next fiscal year. And we all know what eventually happens to budgets- you usually spend more than you have. Sounds like we are indeed for “haada times” ahead. We are about to start off the next fiscal year and don’t even have money to cover the basics.

But with all that, the Prime Minister insists that he and his government has done well over the last two years and that there has been two years of success. It’s quite obvious that there are two Belizes in this country. In the country of Belize where the Prime Ministers and SOBs Supporters of Barrow live, it has been two years of success indeed. The rest us can’t say that. But don’t worry about that, Barrow is telling us, we had better just tighten up cause the journey is about to get rougher.

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