As you heard in our interview, John Briceño asserted the Prime Minister, and Godwin Hulse are behaving in a hypocritical manner to want that much representation on the Senate Committee. Back when the Prime Minister was in Opposition, he was asserting that the Government should not investigate itself.
Indeed, that back in the bad-old days of SSB scandals, and Prime Minister Barrow was leader of the opposition, he was pressuring the Musa Government, demanding that any investigation of corruption needed to be independent.
Our archives show that back on September 1, 2004, the Then Opposition Leader Dean Barrow and his party released a statement questioning the Musa's handling of the Social Security Scandal. They were recommending a Commission of Inquiry, which is totally different from a senate probe. They wanted to put the investigation completely outside of the influence of the Government being scrutinized.
On the issue of Senate Inquiries then, their party sat out that investigation even though they were given an opportunity to have one representative. They were of the opinion that even a 3,1,1 configuration wouldn't be enough to firewall against influence.
We also found this interview with Barrow, who was the Opposition Leader at that time, in which he was making demands of the PUP government. Here's a flash back to August 27, 2004:
FILE: August 27, 2004
Hon. Dean Barrow
"Remember that the UDP and SPEAR and the Chamber of Commerce and I believe the unions and the Business Bureau have all said that the government must give to the people an independent inquiry into what has happened, full disclosure of all that's taken place at Social Security and must appropriately punish those that have been responsible. The government has not yet conceded even 1 of those demands and that is why in particular - there are all sorts of other reasons, but in particular, that is why people are marching tomorrow. That is why the turnout will be so huge."
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