| Briceno: “You Broke It, You Buy It” |
| Fri, August 31, 2018 |
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| The Leader of the Opposition responded to the Prime Minister - and he said that the Government is setting a dangerous precedent. He set out the party line for the day: that the PUP had disposed of this debt in 2008 - albeit by diverting grant funds meant for other purposes to the Ashcroft Alliance bank accounts. From there, the PUP argued, it is the Barrow Administration that basically "stronged" back that money - and set the stage for a huge and costly legal battle - which it lost - at the taxpayer's peril. Briceno said the UDP broke it, and should pay the bill for it :...
Hon. John Briceno, Leader of the Opposition
"Now when you think back that we are at 95 million, it was only 36 million back then. We should have paid it back then. But now it's at 95 million, because they are fighting all over the place in courts, spend millions of dollars - to lose all of these cases and now we are 95 million dollars."
"This 36.8 million dollars debt was created by who was in government at that time? Who was in power? No other than our financial genius the prime minister and the UDP. It his government, they broke, they own, they must fix it. The precedent that the prime minister wants to set in this house today, that a parliament can decide what loan that they are going to pay and which one they won't pay - because they never supported it, because they were on the opposite side of the house when that agreement was made. That is a dangerous precedent. The CCJ says that it was legal. So you are a better lawyer than the chief justice true? I am a Belizean just like you. I love this country as much as you do. But when you are bloody wrong, you are wrong and you are wrong right now."
"Guess what, the fight continues. From the indications that I am feeling now - they are going to vote down their on bill. They bring a bill and they will vote against it. This must be the first time this is happening in parliament - that they bring a bill and they are going to vote against the very bill that they brought."
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