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Hon. Francis Fonseca - Leader Of The Opposition
"Typical Dean Barrow, when his back is against the wall - this is exactly what he does. He comes out with some bogus issue to try to divert the attention of the Belizean people away from the real problems, eating away at his government by a showman. The substantive issue that he raised in terms of this allegation of some secret agreement - well obviously the original agreement was signed in 1993, the letter that he's talking about in 2005 which extended the agreement another seven years, was absolutely not a secret. This was a letter and the agreement was vetted by the Attorney General's Ministry and the solicitor General at the time, it was vetted by officials of the Ministry of Finance, it went through the Cabinet as I indicated yesterday. Certainly we acted on the advice on the officials of the Attorney General's Ministry and in the Ministry of Finance."

Jules Vasquez
"I have spoken to two members of the Cabinet at the time, certainly not the two that the Prime Minister was speaking about - they have told me that in fact they have no recollection of it being brought up at the Cabinet level."

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"Well I don't know who you've talked to but I certainly have talked to many members of that Cabinet who recall that discussion and only after some prompting they were able to recall it. We discussed obviously many many things in cabinet so whether or not someone recalls that specific issue and now wants to say now 'Oh I don't recall the specifics of it' - that may be the case but I am absolutely confident that that was discussed."

Reporter
"Is there any kind of documentation to substantiate what you're saying? Because right now it's your word against theirs."

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"Well we don't back around files and I don't take files out of government. I don't back around government files, I don't remove files from government offices when I leave, so you would have to go to relevant ministries."

Reporter
"I know of other Cabinet members from that time who have electronic records of their Cabinet papers taken to cabinet. Shouldn't you or the then Prime Minister or Mr. Fonseca would have records of the cabinet papers?"

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"I just said to you that I recall the cabinet meeting - I don't have to have records because I know the cabinet meeting took place in which we discussed this matter."

Jules Vasquez
"Sir, the Finance and Audit Act was approved by the Senate on March 24th, 2005 - the same day that letter from BISL was signed. Might you see how that signing of such agreement would be against the spirit of that legislation?"

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"Well as you rightly said - the legislation was not in place at the time. You may argue that it violates the spirit of the act, that may be the case but the reality is the signing of that letter, at the time it was signed was in conformity with the laws of Belize. And that was the advice we got both from the Attorney General's Ministry and from the legal counsel in the Ministry of Finance."

Jules Vasquez
"Sir, if I may - was this letter a part of a side agreement with the Ashcroft Alliance on the entire Econ bail out of the Prosser mis-transaction for BTL because we know on that Thursday, which was a Holy Thursday, - the then Prime Minister Must then announced that Ecom sale was going through and that also $12Million dollars of Business Tax for the Belize Bank would be written off?"

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"I'm not aware of this letter as you call it a 'side letter' was a part of any other wider agreement."

Jules Vasquez
"Sir, but isn't it unusual that a letter should be written basically on behalf of the government? Phillip Osbourne wrote you all a letter on behalf of BISL which you all just had to sign saying that the government through this letter undertakes to do XYZ. Isn't that unbecoming for a government to have an executive of a foreign company (though it may be registered locally) to write then and say 'the government undertakes to do so and so - just sign it'?

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"That happens all the time Jules, it's based on negotiations and discussions."

Jules Vasquez
"Sir, how could sign something to bind a future administration? It is fine if one agrees to a twenty year agreement or a forty year agreement in the life of a government but you all agreed to an extension 2003 to 2013 but then a further extension, 2013 - 2020 for when there was no indication that you would be in government at that time."

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"No I think that's a legitimate concern, a legitimate view and it's something that any government has to weigh. A sovereign government can take that action, there's nothing illegal about doing that. But there is an arguement that can be made - 'listen we should confine agreements to the term of a government', you have every right to question whether that decision was right but the point is it was done in the proper way at the time, in our view."

Jules Vasquez
"But if the Finance and Audit act were law at that time and it was just within days of becoming of getting the Governor General ascent - you all would have had to disclose it to the National Assembly. Were you aware of that timeline and that in fact 'let's hurry sign this now so that we don't have to take it at the house in a month'?"

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"No - not at all. The matter had been in discussion for some time and I view those dates - in fact when I first recognized what you're saying was it was pointed out in the news. That the Senate had passed the Finance and Audit reform Act on that same day - that was the first time that I was aware of that."

Jules Vasquez
"But the House of Representatives, of which you are a member, passed it on March 18th."

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"Yes but I didn't know the Senate had passed it the same day as the date of the letter."

Jules Vasquez
"But you certainly knew it was a foot in the Legislative process?"

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"Yes, yes."

Jules Vasquez
"And you knew that what you were doing circumvented the spirit and the letter of that?"

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"As I said Jules, this was in progress for some time now so there was no question of time to hurry through with this letter in an effort to circumvent (to use your word) the Finance and Audit Act. That was not a motivation in this matter at all."

Jules Vasquez
"Sir, would you agree with the rationale that in fact taking over IMMARBE is of some exigency in so far as our Fisheries Industry faces sanctions in European Union?"

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"Mr. Barrow has indicated that it is an urgent requirement for him to do this. I would have respected that - had he briefed the National Assembly on the matter and given us the reasons and the rationale of why he thinks it's an urgent matter. If he had briefed me, called me and talked to me about the matter."

And moving on from that Fonseca also discussed the meeting he had this morning with the UNIBAM executive. They wanted to talk to him about the gender policy – which the opposition last week said should be trashed. The party did that after a meeting with the Belmopan Churches – set up by Cayo south Area Rep Julius Espat. Well today, Espat – who has publicly spoken out against homosexuals, was not there when Fonseca met with UNIBAM. But the party leader told us he wanted to hear their point of view:…

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"I think as a National Leader it's important for me to meet with all sides on any issue of such major importance. To hear from all sides and to make it absolutely clear that I am the leader of a party that is committed to equality, dignity of the human person, respect - that is critically important. Their concern is that the political leaders get a balanced view of the document, we have heard from the churches. I have met with the churches - they wanted an opportunity to meet with me and talk to me and share their views; that was essentially it. But I said to those I met with this morning, we absolutely need to give the churches, the teachers an opportunity to review this document. I said to them that I felt - not to withdraw the document for the sake of withdrawing but I really believe that the document is in jeopardy. I really believe that what the Prime Minister is doing, is saying 'well we'll support the National Gender Policy' but then whispering to the churches and other people 'well don't worry about it because it's just a document and nothing will ever come out of it, it won't see the light of day', that sort of hypocritical behavior is taking place. So it was a very frank and open discussion, both with the church leaders and the LGBT community, to hear from them. I'm always open to learning, opened to be informed and that was the spirit of both discussions."

Jules Vasquez
"So if we have a document reset and we start at ground zero again as the PUP have advocated - would you the Leader of the Opposition be in support of a policy which includes diverse gender orientation including homosexuality?"

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"I'm not going to state my position ahead of any discussions and consultations - that's the whole purpose of having the discussion and consultations. I want to hear the specific concerns of the churches, I want to hear, if you say you have a problem with for example, sexual orientation in the document - the definition of that, let's look at it and let's see what definition can be placed."

Jules Vasquez
"You can't suit everyone and at some point somebody will have to get offended and I'm asking you to come down on the principle. Should it be omni-inclusive or should it be more conventional and exclude certain lifestyle choices or orientation?"

Hon. Francis Fonseca
"I think the answer Jules won't be an answer that you will like. The answer is in the middle, it can't be all of that - it can't be one or the other, it will be somewhere in the middle."

And while Fonseca is desperately seeking middle ground in a highly polarized dispute, his former Cabinet colleague and law partner Godfrey Smith says he's dodging. In his online column Flashpoint, Smith today weighed in on the gender policy. Of the position taken by the PUP last week, he writes, quote,

"The Opposition, with Pavlovian predictability, showed no real leadership and merely rushed to ally itself with the church leaders without pausing to recall that this revised policy builds on achievements of the first National Gender Policy developed by the PUP in 2002. It is therefore nonsensical to call for its complete withdrawal. Responsible leadership demands that the opposition state what aspects of the revised policy it disagrees with and why. If the Leader of the Opposition has creditably and publicly stated that the PUP not only embraces homosexuals but also embraces their rights as Belizeans then he couldn't possibly have any difficulty with the paragraph stuck in the craw of the Christian coalition."

As former PUP Deputy Leader, Smith's column is usually printed in the Belize Times, we'll wait and see if this one will make it to the party organ.