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Mayor Zenaida Moya has been under sustained pressure –from inside her party in which she faces disciplinary measures and from outside her party as she is crippled by the revelation of a succession of allegations of wrongdoing and mismanagement of public funds. And all those revelations have come from the audit department – which have connected the mayor to a litany of misdeeds, from under-deposits to over-pay. But tonight, the shoe is on the other foot as another councillor is under scrutiny; Leila Peyrefitte is accused of presiding over a period in which revenue was under-collected – and again the audit department is the one pointing the finger and asking questions.

Now, normally this would further tarnish the image of the entire council, but it in fact helps Mayor Moya because it serves to sully everyone’s image thereby neutralizing the moral advantage that her intra-party opponents have been lording over her. Or in small change, the same knife weh stick hog, stick sheep. You see, the council’s loyalty is divided and there are five to six councillors who are allied against the Mayor – principal among them are Leila Peyrefitte, Dion Leslie and Laura Esquivel.

And now Peyrefitte is the one on the hot seat. The audit reports allege that under Peyrefitte’s management of the Revenue Department between 2006 and 2009 as much as four hundred thousand dollars in revenue due in trade license fess were written off or discounted – and without legal authority. The audit report points out write offs of thousands of dollars to the Castillo Group of companies for, “good partnership” in supporting the council. The Audit Department questioned her about, “balances written off” for the Santiago Castillo Group of Companies. Other companies were given so called incentives for trade license payments amounting to $72,000. Today Peyrefitte gave her response insisting that everything she did was above board.

Jacqueline Godwin,
“Do you accept responsibility for the under collection of revenue during your tenure as councillor with responsibility for that?”

Leila Peyrefitte, City Councillor
“No I don’t because like I said Jackie it was not a unilateral decision. Any decision that I made concerning trade and property always had the council’s approval. I did not give a single discount to anybody or incentive to any business without the Mayor and the Councillors knowing.

There was no under-collection. My understanding is that we gave incentives and tradeoffs to business people and discounts to property owners. So there was no under-collection.

In 2006 when we got in, the council was in a financial crisis. What the council did, authorized by the trade license board, was to give incentives and tradeoffs, meaning that the council needed computers, filing cabinets, and we did tradeoffs so as to get those things, equipments, for the council to function.

We went to businesses in Belize to get motorcycles, raincoats, whistles, rubber boots, so it was not only Santiago Castillo that got these discounts.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“But according to the audit, would you concede that the law does not authorize you to give any discounts?”

Leila Peyrefitte,
“It is not in the law.

The Director of Local Government informed us that it the right way to give a discount or incentive is to request that incentive or discount trade-off from the local government for the Minister to authorize.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“Because some are saying that this is just like Mayor Moya, just different style, different degree. How do you respond to that?”

Leila Peyrefitte,
“I have no comment to say about that. There is no comparison, none at all. I will stand for whatever happened in the revenue department. I will defend whatever I did.”

Jacqueline Godwin,
“Why would anyone want to attack you this way or try to ruin your reputation?”

Leila Peyrefitte,
“I have no problem to say that Mayor Moya and myself do not see eye to eye. There are certain things that I disagree with and that has been from a long time ago. But I will not get into that. Now to try to send out information concerning that monies were missing, that’s a different thing. And I will keep saying, the council and the Mayor knew of every single discount that I gave to every business.”