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Joseph Waight, Financial Secretary
"We will go back to the House shortly for a supplemental approval detailing the Petrocaribe expenditure to date, which is about 66 million dollars, maybe a little more - 68 - and we can itemize project by project how that 66 has been made up. Most of it has been spent - National Bank is one thing, there's twenty million. We've been supporting the Belize City Council in their street concrete program - that's another ten million or so. We have spent money to do upgrades of streets in various towns, that's another ten million or so. San Pedro, North Ambergris Caye - we can put all of that and we will put all of the in the supplementary appropriation to detail it."

Jules Vasquez
"You are satisfied that the government and people of Belize have received value for money and that there are no bloated contracts in spending so far?"

Joseph Waight, Financial Secretary
"Yes, because contracts would go through Ministry of Works, they do an evaluation; they sign off value for money. The whole contracting process goes through the Contractor General to make sure that we've cross our "t" and dotted our "i" and so it looks fairly good. The value for money - the National Bank, 20 million went there and time will tell on the auditing with the performance. So far so good on that. A little bit of money has gone to BIL - that goes through its own contracting processes, again they have their engineers and supervisors. So by and large, the money is being spent according to government procedures and I am satisfied there is sufficient checks and balances to make sure there is no wastage or going off the rails."

That supplementary budget is expected to be taken to the house before the end of November. The loan motion for the 114 million dollar Petrocaribe loan will be debated at the same time. And sure to be discussed in there is whether government has gotten value for money for the Petrocaribe spending thus far. That's what we asked the Fin Sec yesterday:..

Joseph Waight, Financial Secretary
"The certificate comes from the invoice from the contractor and certified by the Ministry of Works that in deed the work has been performed."

Mike Rudon, CH5
"Like the San Antonio road which was certified right?" (laughing)

Joseph Waight, Financial Secretary
"But what else can we do. We put our faith in the Ministry of Works and generally they come up with pretty well."

Jules Vasquez
"Sir, as the government's money manager, it has to cause sleepless nights knowing that every month the debt is accruing - 8 million Belize a month has to affect the debt to GDP ratio which I know you watch extremely closely. Does the government of Belize right now have more money that it know how to spend?"

Joseph Waight, Financial Secretary
"We've only spent about 66 million of Petrocaribe money so far. We have another 180 million in the bank. Indeed its borrow money, the debt for GDP ratio is going up, but so are the reserves. we built our reserve and in the Central Bank and the government has so far still quite a bit of unallocated money and it could be held for compensation, it could be held for other things, but the immediate benefit although the debt to GDP ratio is going up; the immediate benefit is that our reserves have been the highest they have been and that has put some confidence and stability in the system as well."

And while the reserves are nearing a billion dollars, Waight conceded that the institutional capacity of the ministry of works to oversee so many simultaneous infrastructure projects may be lacking.