Email

Print

Prime Minister Dean Barrow held a rare and hurriedly put together Friday afternoon press conference. It was to make a major announcement about the deadlock between the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital’s board and its doctors. We’ll tell you about that shortly, but first to the big news of the day which is that tens of thousands of dollars - quite possibly more than a hundred thousand are missing from the Belize City Council and an arrest is imminent. Rumours had been swirling from earlier in the day but this afternoon at his press conference the Prime Minister dropped the bomb when he confirmed it. The Prime Minister didn’t say how much is missing or who stole it but he did say heads or at least one head will roll at City Hall. He says the City Council’s new government-appointed financial consultant Patrick Tillett is the one who blew the whistle.

Hon. Dean Barrow,
“That financial regulator who is Mr. Patrick Tillett reported to my office and to the Ministry of Local Government that in the course of his work he had uncovered what he deemed to be some serious financial irregularities. We and the Ministry arranged for him to make a statement to the police. That has now been done and it is my sense that arrests are going to be made in consequence of the report formally given to the police by Mr. Tillett.

My understanding is that there were irregularities in terms of monies being collected and not deposited.”

Keith Swift,
Do you know on whose part?

Hon. Dean Barrow,
“No I don’t. I know what the financial controller is saying but I am not going, he made a statement to the police. All I will tell you is that I understand the police are preparing to act against who I am not entirely sure. But again I am pleased that we sent this man in there to do a job and obviously he’s done his work and I wanted to make clear that the moment he alerted us to his findings, we said lower the boon. I don’t care who is involved, I don’t care who will be touched or involved by police charges, of the police inquiry, if you are guilty of financial irregularity, financial wrongdoing, you need to be exposed, you need to be charged, and you need to answer for what you did.”

Reports to 7News are that the figure was initially thought to be in the range of thirty to fifty thousand dollars – but reliable sources say that it is now in the six figure range – meaning more than one hundred thousand. Mayor Zenaida Moya was unavailable for comment but we did speak to the council’s Finance Director Duane Davis who told us he knows of no missing money and declined further comment. It is a developing story and we’ll have more on Monday.