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Peter Allen, CEO - Ministry of Health
"It is a little bit difficult for me to think that what is a special interest group that has an interest of course in who conducts inspections, should be telling us who the inspector will be. Obviously we are open to negotiations and it was for that reason that the Minister suggested that the association was welcome to send a representative on any inspection to make sure that the process was transparent and fair and the executive rejected that. The executive has since written saying that they feel that they will be force to use the essential services process. I did check just this morning before I came because for some reason I thought you might ask me, but the minister of labor has not yet received notification about such a process. But if indeed that is the process for the settlements of disputes then once again the ministry is happy to proceed with the process. We do think we are doing the right thing."

Hon. Pablo Marin, Minister of Health
"We are not overseeing anyone, we are looking at an area that will benefit the country. Everything we do is for our people and if we have someone to go out there and look at illegal drugs, the quality of drugs and test the drugs that we have then that means that we are moving forward and that is everything that we are doing. It is sad to see that six years from now, the Pharmacy Association is jumping on something that we are trying to do for the benefit of the people."

"The girl has the qualifications needed. I think she is the only one with the qualifications that she has right now. For someone to do a drug inspection here in Belize you only need like two weeks training and that is it. This person has a bachelor's degree; she is very qualified and according to one of our technical persons, Doctor Manzanero, she is qualified."

Jules Vasquez
"Is she was a trained individual, same training but without the name Contreras or was not the daughter of Minister Contreras, would you all still be going to lengths to protect her?"

Hon. Pablo Marin, Minister of Health
"Sure, we have done a lot of things. we have people, sorry to say it, in the Ministry of Health that we know they are not qualified. We cannot remove them because the public service protects them. So what do we do about those people now that we want to do a change in the ministry to look at something that can benefit us all? Then you jump on me and tell me that I am doing wrong? Why don't you jump and say you know what there is this company selling something illegal and do something with that. Nothing like that has been done for six years."