And after the petition was submitted this morning in Belmopan, in the afternoon back at party headquarters in Belize City, Leader of the Opposition, Francis Fonseca, held a 45 minute press briefing where he spoke on matters of public interest.
Foremost among those was the impasse in the sugar industry where BSI and the Cane Farmers can't agree on what price, if any, should be paid for bagasse.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced the official government position, which is that bagasse has a value and the farmers should be paid for it. But he stressed that they shouldn't hold the industry hostage by refusing the deliver cane.
And what does Francis Fonseca say? It's pretty much the same thing: that farmers should not protest by delaying the start of the season, but he criticized the Government for not getting both parties to the negotiating table:
Hon. Francis Fonseca, Leader of the Opposition
"Certainly, the Prime Minister's intervention yesterday, we view as being woefully inadequate. This is a very serious matter. It is not a political matter. It is a national issue which requires leadership, and it requires immediate intervention. We cannot allow one single more day to pass without resolving this issue. It is going to affect the entire country of Belize. It is going to affect the entire economy of this country. We can't allow this issue to fester any longer."
"The uncertainty certainly is not good for Belize, and a meeting should have taken place already. We should have already have had a meeting in the Prime Minister's office in Belmopan bringing these parties to the table, so that we could move ahead with the opening of the sugarcane grinding season."
"Of course, we have said to the cane farmers and we have said this to BSI as well that we recognized that BSI and ASR had made a significant investment in the co-generation plant, so any formula that is arrived at, at the end of the day through discussions between the farmers and the company, has to reflect that investment that BSI/ASR has made and the risk that they have undertaken in that investment. We recognized that there has to be a responsible solution to this matter."
Fonseca says that the official position of the party is that if the cane farmers decide to delay the start of the season by refusing to make cane deliveries, as undesirable as that might be, the party will respect their position.
Another matter which he thought was of urgent national interest was the revelation that Belize Rural North Representative Edmund Castro recommended visas for 38 Chinese Nationals.
The Prime Minister downplayed it, saying that a letter of recommendation, or, indeed, one thousand such letters, is just and only that: a recommendation; it's not a visa. Now that's after he said 5 weeks ago that depending on the number of applications recommended, he might reasonably conclude that a hustle was afoot. Well, yesterday, he threw that out the window, and today the leader of the opposition called the flip-flop "disgraceful":
Hon. Francis Fonseca, Leader of the Opposition
"The other issue is the alleged visa hustle involving the Minister of State Edmund Castro and it is very disappointing that in the face of new compelling evidence that Mr. Castro allegedly provided written recommendations for some over 30 plus (there maybe more) Chinese nationals, over - I believe - a 3 weeks period. That is what has been produced on the media through Channel 5. The Prime Minister continues to staunchly defend Castro even though as the news media has pointed out - he has done turned-around on this issue because at his last press conference - and it was there for everyone to see - he made a big noise about the fact that, oh well, if there are 10 recommendations, or 20 or 50 recommendations that a minister was providing, then that would send up alarm bells, and that would give him to hold the view that some hustle was taking place. Well now, presented with the evidence, he has tried to move the goal post. Now it's no longer 10, 20 or 50. Now, he is talking about 75 and 100 and 200, even 1000. So, it is absolutely disgraceful what this Prime Minister is doing in the face of clear allegation, very compelling allegation of corruption involving visa hustle, that he himself talked about and said that he was begging Cabinet ministers 'for God's sakes, stop it!' In the face of evidence now, he has chosen his party political interest ahead of the national interest. I want the Belizean people to ask themselves this question: Did Mr. Castro knows all these Chinese nationals he was recommending? Did he know them? A part of the process of recommending (yes people can recommend), but you must recommend people who you know. So, did Mr. Castro know all these Chinese nationals he was recommending? And the question that logically follows from that: if he did not know them then what was his motivation for making these recommendations?"
Castro has flatly denied allegations of corruption made against him, and he has sued Channel 5 and the whistle-blower.
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