We've all seen Prime Minister Dean Barrow's speech at the
Fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad last month. He had to look sharp because
he was speaking right before US President Barack Obama. But reports in the opposition
media suggest that Barrow's suit was so sharp its price tag was into the
thousands of dollars. Cute story and not the type of thing we usually follow
up on, but it was Barrow who laid it bare when pressed discussed it on LOVE FM today when
he was a guest on the morning show. So we asked him, how much did that suit
cost and who paid?
Hon. Dean Barrow,
"I don't know, this is reductio ad absurdium but I had two suits.
One is the suit that I purchased to get married in (laughs). So I am so reduced in terms
of not having the kind of cash flow that I used to, that I had to recycle that
suit. But Lord man, these things cost $600, $650, that sort of thing. Maybe
it is because I wear them so well that they appear to be more expensive than
they are (laughs), if they indeed so appear. But clearly the Opposition is really desperate
when they will make an issue of that but it does goes give me a chance to say
that whatever my suits cost, I pay for them completely out of my own pocket
and that is in sharp contrast to the PUP Foreign Minister who went to Taiwan,
had suits made, and then billed the government of Belize, had the government
of Belize pay for those suits."
Jules Vasquez,
Is that a verifiable allegation?
Hon. Dean Barrow,
"It is verifiable. The records are there in Foreign Affairs, the current
Foreign Minister had disclosed this to me and we can make the documentation
available."
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not furnish those bills. Former
Foreign Minister Eamon Courtenay said he had nothing to do with anything like
that. |