Last night the news was all about that 90 million dollar judgement against the government for the Universal Health Services debt. But, tonight, the narrative has shifted, and that's because four ranking UDP Representatives say they will vote against paying all that money to the Belize Bank. To give you some background, the Caribbean Court of Justice granted permission for the Belize Bank Limited to enforce a 2013 arbitration award against the Government of Belize. The original award was for 36 million Belize dollars - but that was back in 2013, and since then interest of 17% has been running. The interest alone has now added up to another 50 plus million dollars, tot a total cost of 90.6 million dollars - for a hospital the government doesn't even own.
And even though the interest racked up on their watch, that massive figure has been keeping UDP representatives up at night - especially since the original guarantee for Universal Health Services dates back to a secret deal made during the previous PUP Administration.
And today, in quite remarkable declarations, four of them told us they will vote against paying the money. And their vote matters since this 90 million has to come out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund - and the constitution makes clear that no monies can be paid out of that fund without the approval of parliament.
Right now, by the terms of the decision, the Minister of Finance - who is the Prime Minister - is required to take the enforcement order to Parliament to get approval. And today, Michael Finnegan, John Saldivar, Anthony Boots Martinez and Tracy Taegar-Panton told us they will vote against it.
We start with the senior member, Party Whip Michael Finnegan who said he doesn't see the sense in paying:
Hon. Michael Finnegan, UDP Party Whip
"Imagine you guarantee wa loan for 39 million dollars for UHS without coming to the national assembly for approval. You guarantee it without any collateral. In other words, if dehn people end up not paying the loan as they did - the government of Belize and the people of Belize noh have nothing to get back in return for the 34 or the 39 million dollars. When you done do that now, the Belize Bank now then turn around, they sell off UHS to another group, that took it over now, this new group, Universal Healthcare Partners. So they collected their 39 million dollars for their sale to healthcare partners. So the bank doesn't lose anything. They already got their first 39 million dollars. Jules, in my view that is worthless and immoral and I have to break it down in small change so the ordinary Joe and Jill could understand. And I am saying I don't want to pay because what you did in terms of my concern you did it illegally. You spent Belizean's money without coming to the National Assembly for permission, and I am going to my grave with that in my heart. Anyhow, you took me to court, and I decided I would fight all the way. The CCJ has decided now that you will get an additional 39 million dollars, so you are collecting two times. You are collecting two 39 million dollars and then they are giving you an additional 50 million dollars of interest which occurred over that period of time. Jesus Christ, they don't have any moral conscience to the poor people of Belize. We are dealing with a court, as far as I am concerned, in my view, that has no...conscience, no regard for small nations, and in my view it is frightening. We have made tow mistake sin this country since independence. Two mistakes we have made. One, we have made a mistake to allow the PUP to run this country for 10 years. They say UDP is bad, you meet these ones who want to get back into power, and they want to get back in power for a repeat of the same thing, to do the same thing. The second major mistake we made in the country was made under the United Democratic Party Government. When we made the decision to relinquish our relationship with the privy council and to join the Caribbean Court of Justice. In my view that was a mistake. We were told that we were going to get Caribbean jurists who were born and raised in Belize and will think like how the ordinary people in the region think. If you google most of these jurists, these are right-wing people, conservative people who in my view have no regards to the ordinary Joe or Jill out yah. That is my humble view. And if is left to me - when that motion if that motion would come to the National Assembly, I would encourage every member on my side, not to vote for that motion, not to vote for that motion."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"You serious?"
Hon. Michael Finnegan, UDP Party Whip
"I believe I have some influence, and I would encourage my colleagues not to vote for that motion. When they borrowed the motion, they didn't tell us. Now they want to pay back the money, they will come to me to pay back what I didn't approve? I would never pay that! I don't know if you have to google it for me and look up I was reading something the other day, one of those old philosophers or one of those good old fighters in the world, said, I am prepared to go to jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience."
In a release yesterday the Belize Bank stressed, quote, "there have been no double payments to the Bank: that was an argument rejected by Mrs Justice Griffith in the Belize Supreme Court, a decision not appealed by the Government."
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