So, as you saw just now, UDP's Michael Peyrefitte called out Business Senator Mark Lizarraga on his suggestion that the Government needs to be reducing the amount of public officers hired at this time.
That sounds a lot like a call for retrenchment, even though Lizarraga didn't exactly say the dreaded "R" word.
Well, that wasn't the only time that the two clashed. In his budget presentation, Lizarraga publicly questioned the function and budget of Peyrefitte's ministerial portfolio as the Attorney General, and the UDP Minister responded saying that he took great offense to that.
Here's how that one went:
Hon. Mark Lizarraga, Business Senator
"I hope today the Attorney General will tell us what it is that he does for us. What he has done and what he will do to improve in his ministry, because this is a ministry that supposed to be and supposed to provide exemplary legal services to the government and people of Belize. Yet we spend on legal fees more than his whole ministry. I'm not saying you spent it, I said we, as a country spend more than your budget on legal advice. But isn't that what you are supposed to do. "The Attorney General's ministry will provide quality and innovative legal services to the government and people of Belize and will contribute to its development." But you see, if you go back to page 87 of the budget, it seems that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Home Affairs is doing the same thing. So maybe that's why we have this problem, because 2 ministries - if you look under the Strategies Priorities of this ministry (Foreign Affairs and Home Affairs) it says "provide advice of bills and legislation, provide advice to the ministries and departments on legal questions affecting the business of government, undertake continuous and law revision and reform, draft subsidiary legislation, ministerial orders and gazette notices and implement legislative programs for the year." I thought that was what the ministry of the attorney general was supposed to do. Obviously, they are not doing their job, because we need to get it all over the place. So again, why is the Ministry of Finance on page 57 spending 6.4 million dollars this year for legal advice?"
Hon. Michael Peyrefitte, Attorney General
"I take great offence to Senator Lizarraga's pronouncements or questions as to what is it exactly that we do. He seems almost perplex that the attorney general's ministry even exist, wondering what is our purpose. Well he wouldn't last a day in my job. All we do is write and see to it that all legislations are passed for the country, both acts and statutory instruments. We provide all the legal advice to all the ministries within the government. We provide legal advice and exchange of statutes and information through our ILA. We deal with Justices of the Peace. We sit on the National Security Council. We sit on the sub-committee for trade. We do a lot of work in the attorney general's ministry and Senator Lizarraga owes the good people of the attorney general's ministry an apology. We are responsible for court matters as well as legal affairs in general. This includes overseeing the Family Court, the Vital Stats Unit and I think Vital Stats alone will drive Senator Lizarraga crazy."
As we told you, the Senate Debate on the budget is still ongoing, and it looks like it's going to be another long night in Belmopan for the parliamentarians.
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