Layer by layer, the DFC Commission of Inquiry's public hearings is revealing the decadent mismanagement that prevailed at the DFC between 1999 and 2004. For us at 7NEWS, the testimony often provides formal confirmation of cases we've been reporting on for years. One more case of that came yesterday when the commission discussed small housing projects to construct 453 mostly low income houses valued at a combined $15.5 million dollars.

Most of the contracts were awarded to small developers to build one to ten houses. And that's where things got fast and loose. In many cases, those contractors had no prior experience and no expertise, but as the hearings showed, what they had was a political green light, and in the good old days of pork barrel DFC, that was as good as a license to print money. We go back to 2002 to get some context on one special housing project in Hattieville.

Jules Vasquez Reporting,
In January of 2002, we spoke to Veronica Kerr about her DFC dream house, which turned out to be a living nightmare.

Veronica Kerr,
[January 11th, 2002] "The bathroom is falling off from the house. We have a lot of cracks all over the house, the is bursting up. You could see outside and inside. The floor is busted up. Water is under the marley under the house and under the places in here. When you knock the house, it shakes. The sewerage is shaking, the bathroom basin is lifting up, and all kinds of thing. I didn't expect all of this. I thought they would have given us something better than this. Look outside on the roof of the house and you can see the big bursting. Outside where the cement starts to lay from the foundation go up, you see cracks all around the house. I think we need something better than this. We are poor people. We are not rich, we do not have a lot of money."

Sure enough, the construction is grossly substandard but yesterday's public hearing revealed that despite manifest and monstrous problems the DFC signed off on this project, and fully paid the contractor $162,000. The problems began when the DFC courted contractors with no qualifications.

David Price, Chairman
"How are contractors selected?"

Roberto Bautista, Former DFC General Manager
"The contractors, I don't how they were selected but they used to come to us and apply. There wasn't any system to selecting them per say."

In fact, under heavy questioning, Bautista admitted that there was a system, it was a straight political directive.

Merlene Bailey-Martinez, Commissioner
"Was there in any shape or form, any communication to DFC that they are required to hire these particular contractors?"

Roberto Bautista,
"Not exactly but what we used to get sometimes is…one or two of them where a certain constituency would recommend disbursement. A representative would recommend it."

Merlene Bailey-Martinez,
"Which representative would you have had?"

Roberto Bautista,
"Well with various of them."

Merlene Bailey-Martinez,
"Can you recall specifically representatives who have recommended contractors?"

Roberto Bautista,
"We had in Cayo, we had in Belize…"

Merlene Bailey-Martinez,
"In Cayo who would be that representative?"

Roberto Bautista,
"Well we would have a man like maybe Ainslie Leslie who would probably recommend, Dan Silva at the time recommended contractors to build."

Merlene Bailey-Martinez,
"Belize District."

Roberto Bautista,
"We had…"

Merlene Bailey-Martinez,
"Mr. Samuels?"

Roberto Bautista,
"Mr. Samuels. We have…"

Merlene Bailey-Martinez,
"Hattieville."

Roberto Bautista,
"We have the constituency of Minister Fonseca for example."

And that would be just the example in this case - housing in the Belizean American area of Hattieville in Fonseca's Belize Rural Central Division. Commissioner Bailey-Martinez revealed that DFC had major reservations about the project, but somehow it was forced to push through with payments.

David Price,
"So generally DFC was satisfied with quality of these houses?"

Roberto Bautista,
"In the end what happened is there might have been a few projects where the quality was not there because you go and supervise a project and by the time you get there, sometimes they have already cast the floor and you don't know what type of foundation was laid. But in several instances, in particularly the smaller projects, you find that there was some that the workmanship was questionable, the quality in some instances."

Merlene Bailey-Martinez,
"Why we mention Hattieville is because I could recall specifically where the field officer was recommending against the final disbursement and it was made anyway. Why would that be done?"

Roberto Bautista,
"I don't know but you might have had instances where you would find that the contractor might come to maybe somebody senior and say, 'listen the field officer is not recommending the disbursement but I cannot progress because I would lose more.'"

And, so someone figured, with work like this why should the contractors lose, right? Why not just make these folks take the force of the blow. That's what happened, and that's why in 2002 - they were appalled that they were being forced to pay $160 month for a house that looked like a sewage and a sewage that looked like a pit.

The hearings continue on Tuesday.