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Senator Disputes Alleged Cost of Hearings
posted (July 5, 2017)

And in our last item from the the Hearings Today, Senator Elena Smith clarified that contrary to the Guardian Newspaper report, the Hearings have not cost half a million dollars so far. 

She told us that in fact, they haven’t spent even 200 thousand dollars as yet. Here’s how she explained it:

Daniel Ortiz
“From the camps of the government and the UDP, there seems to be that suggestion well we are wasting money now.â€￾

Hon. Elena Smith - Labour/Civil Society Senator
“Would you expect to get any different response from them? I mean it’s the government and so if you are spending money to do something that might shed a bad light on them, of course they would find excuses for us to not continue with the hearings. I can tell you that we have not spent half of 500 thousand that has not been spent as yet. I don’t see that we will reach that amount by the end of the inquiry and so we’ve heard where it has been reported that they inquiry has been costing us 15 thousand per week, 500 thousand, some have said a million, none of the above are correct.â€￾

Daniel Ortiz
“What is the actual value, are you able to say what’s the running tab at this time?â€￾

Hon. Elena Smith
“We have spent less than 200 thousand so far and that includes everything that we’ve done from the start up until the end of this month.â€￾

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