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But don't get it wrong - there was still plenty to argue about - not the least of which came out when Member of Fort George Said Musa accused Works Minister Boots Martinez of the corrupt administration of the hurricane rehabilitation project. Here's that back and forth:…

Hon. said Musa, Area Rep. Fort George
"Not a single family in the Fort George division whose homes were affected by the hurricane has been assisted. Is it because they voted for me minister? The ministry put out a paper inviting applications for all those whose homes were affected to give details and to send in those applications. 25 applications were sent Mr. Speaker to the ministry of works. Not a single one has been assisted but its nit just the people of the Fort George, I could go on talking about them, I can go on talking about the Gladden/Thompson at #12 Frederic Street in particular whose homes was smash in by a big Fig tree as a result of the hurricane, the whole smash in by this Fig tree. Now we had to assist them to get that tree removed. The ministry of works sent all kinds of people around there; 'give us the particulars, don't worry, the house will be repaired' today one week before Christmas Mr. Minister those people still cannot live in their home, they have to be renting somewhere to survive right now. The same situation exists in the entire Belize City, in all the divisions as well on the Southside of Belize City including Port Loyola, Lake Independence, Collet, Albert, Queen Square all of them, people are complaining that they made their application for assistance and they have not been assisted. These are poor people we are talking about who have been affected by the hurricane. Instead Mr. Speaker when we examine a little more closely what has been going on with this hurricane relief housing program, what we find happening is that the minister of works under the guise of the so called housing for the poor has been accumulating large quantities of construction material and having them stored at his property at mile 3 on the Western highway. It is notice Mr. Speaker also that of all the many hardware stores in Belize CIty only one in particular has been getting all these bulk sales by the ministry of works for this program, I won't call the name but the minister know who that is. In fact the Belizean people know, the builders know, Ben the builder knows, they all know which is the contractor getting these contracts and we have heard it from the ministry of finance I believe it was that an announcement of nearly 2 million dollars has been spent on that program. We hear of a chief procurement officer who is not a public officer but who is the no other that the Senator Juliet Thimbriel and I am sure this senator who is fond of accusing people of corruption will at the next senate meeting explain what she is doing as chief procurement officer meddling in the business of housing for the poor and on Wednesday of this week as I was saying ago I watch channel 7 as I am sure all of you on the other side do and I saw this bloating propaganda report when the minister was fully in his element. well without needing to make a pond of it I would want to suggest minister that perhaps you are getting a little too big for your boots because you yes you handle that part about US$11 million that you went to sign in Vienna beautifully but somehow when even channel 7 could not avoid bringing scandal had to question you about this hurricane relief program and the housing for the poor, I notice all of a sudden you became very transfix with th questions that were being put to you. This hurricane relief program Mr. Minister has been so mismanage it is riddled with abuse and corruption; I am making that charge today. It is a scandal that will not go away unless some action is taken by this government to suspend that program as it is now presently manage and indeed to have a proper audit done of exactly what is going on."

Hon. Anthony "Boots" Martinez, Minister of Works
"The project is being run by engineer Mr. Erwin Thimbriel, the office is located at #112 Kut and Euphrates Avenue and is being donated to the government of Belize for FREE."

"And we buy supplies from across the board; Benny's, Wood Depot, contractors also procure their own, in other words, contractors buy from who they want. I will give you a copy of the list of all the people that presented themselves to the office, all the projects that is completed and ongoing and all the projects that needed to be move forward, so again you as the representative for Fort George as the former Prime Minister, you could get in your little vehicle or walk and inspect every single one and I hope that I will do that and I hope that when you come back to this honorable house, you could report to this honorable house that you were completely wrong and out of order."

As for the claim that Senator Juliet Thimbriel was the Procurement Officer she today told us that she did consult on procurement to make sure that expenditure was kept to budget. She stresses however that while she may have been referred to as the procurement officer - she was never paid to act as such and says she never made a cent off the project; she says she did it as public service…