Tonight, the meltdown in the PUP continues in the wake of the disclosure of John Briceno's scathing allegations corruption and criminality within the PUP Administration in which he was Deputy Prime Minister. Now, the Prime Minister who Briceno served under is Said Musa and he told us yesterday that the allegations made by Briceno are false. And now one more PUP leader has said that Briceno is lying. Last night PUP Deputy Leader Julius Espat posted this on his Facebook page: quote, "John Briceno lied about me in his campaign to be leader again (in his recording)." Now, to understand what exactly Espat is referring to, we have to go back to the recording - to the part where Briceno talks about Espat - and alleges that he hoarded campaign funds.
Here's what Briceno told the trusted PUP supporter in Orange Walk East who was secretly recording his conversation:..
Hon. John Briceno, Area Representative - Orange Walk Central
"We still could have won but they are not thinking strategically…looking where they should. They gave all the money to Julius supposedly Julius should have delivered."
Julian:- Laughing
JB:- "and you know this. And what did Julius do? He took all the money and.."
Julian:- "I agree with you. On that I agree with you boss."
JB:-"...he took all the money, spent it on himself and he won by almost 1000 votes of 1000 votes and we lost two seats by less than 60 votes."
Julian:- "Cayo North East and Cayo West…Cayo Central."
JB:- "Cayo Central…there we had the government."
Well, in his Facebook post, Espat says the distribution of funds for the 2012 election was done by a team including co-campaign manager Jaime Briceno - John Briceno's brother. Espat - who we have learned did call for disciplinary measures against Briceno at yesterday's meeting - goes on to say that quote, "John has done serious damage to our loyal party supporters…he has accused his colleagues of things that he has no proof of." Espat took down the facebook post a few hours after he put it up.
And while both he and Musa say Briceno is making wild claims - we know from the record that a number of the episodes he detailed are true and accurate accounts of what actually happened: this includes the Galeria Maya fiasco, the BTL Prosser debacle and the subsequent accommodation agreement, and the ill-fated currency swap where government lost 3.2 million US dollars playing the international derivatives market.
The House meets tomorrow in Belmopan for the Budget presentation, and while the business will be the budget, it is hard to imagine that the UDP side will let the day pass without some reference to the explosive recording. We will wait and see, and we will report tomorrow night.
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