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Hon. Lisa Shoman, PUP SENATOR
"Inquiries and investigations on any matter of public interest or importance. I don't think there is a person in this room who can say with a straight face that the issuance of nationality certificates that are obtained by fraud, by false representation, by concealment of material circumstances - none of you could say with a straight face that that's not a matter of public importance. Mr. President, we are at a crossroads. We are being asked for the third time to look into these allegations of corruption. I did so informally on the floor. I placed before this honorable chamber a motion in November of 2013. I tried to do the same in December of 2013, but was prevented and I am here once again, saying to my colleagues that this is sufficiently a matter of importance. How Mr. President can we refuse to do our job? How can we failed to recognize this as a matter of national importance? These are things that are a matter of public importance."

Hon. Steve Duncan, UDP SENATOR
"And it is has to be recognized that the standards might be differ for small countries than they are for larger developed countries. What may be perceived as corruption in one country might be perceived as a mistake in a bigger country. We must recognized thought that the wider international community is listening to us. We are already having challenges in our country with things like correspondent banking and other situations and so we should not be taking these things likely. Effectively therefore, to do it before the proper time is a mistake. And I am suggesting that we do the ground work first rather than the senate to try do the ground work."

Hon. Jason Patrick Andrews, PUP SENATOR
"What comfort do I have that we will come to the root cause of this festering corruption at the national immigration department? Clearly don't assume that we are so naive that we will entrust that the UDP administration will investigate them own self and that we will be comforted in that."

Hon. Aldo Salazar, UDP SENATOR
"I don't think there is anybody that can stand up with a straight face and say that the issues of immigration are not matters of public interest. The question is when does the senate exercise the power, the discretion to conduct an inquiry? How do we determine this? I am going to make it very clear that I am not imputing any improper motive, because I am not saying that it's anybody's intention. But in order to do this, in order to arrive at this determination we must be very careful. When I say we I mean all of us, not to allow political motives or political posturing to permeate our decision making process."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga, Business Senator
"But we need to begin to hold our public officials to task. We need to find these public officers that must be involved in the issuance of fraudulent documents for these things to continue to occur. So if we can't capture them legally because of some loop, then at least let's exposed them public in the senate as is our right."

Hon. Ashley Rocke, Church Senator
"But the church believes that burden must be brought to bear on those people responsible for the action leading up to the situation. The church believes that the CEO responsible for national security and immigration ought to be brought into question."

Hon. Francine Burns, UDP SENATOR
"I wish to just say that I support the view of my fellow colleagues in saying that we need to let the internal investigations takes its course and be concluded before we can make these assumptions."

Hon. Dr. Carla Barnett - UDP Senator
"If we are looking for an investigation into the workings of the immigration department now, that will not necessarily help us to understand what had happened then. So we would want to be very clear when we are talking about investigations of this particular incident that what we are looking for is investigation at the time of what happen at the time, what happened at that time is not a result of the new processes and procedures that have been put in place."

Hon. Godwin Hulse - Leader of Government Business
"The Process has decoupled the minister. You will find absolutely no legislation that I know of where that power of the minister has been removed. The minister cannot by the law signed a certificate which has not been reviewed by the committee. In fact I won't call names, but members on that side have come to me and say minister what are you doing? Well this minister has no interest at all in having the power to sign and make citizens and oh no. I have no interest in that and I wanted that to be into perpetuity, that people who will be citizens in this country will be decided by a group of citizens independent from the minister, independent from the director and independent from the department and that's what we did."

Hon. Lisa Shoman, PUP SENATOR
"I've never seen so much piety and hand ringing and personal testimony being given in the service of evading one thing; doing the functions and the powers of the senate. The speeches that we have heard today do not in any case replace the fact that there is a public outcry for this. That there is public interest in the investigation on immigration and if you have not heard it, perhaps you need to clean out your senatorial ears and listen to what the people of Belize are saying. Because they are saying to us do your job."

Li Mark Chang, President of the Senate
"Honorable senators, there is 1, 2,3,4,5,6 no's and 5 yes' and one vacant. I think the no's have it."

As you saw just now, the vote was 6 against, 5 in favour, so the motion was defeated. There was no labour and civil society senator present because none has been agreed on by those social partners. The presence of that senator may have forced a tie - which in turn would have forced a casting vote from the President to break the deadlock.