Speaking with the press yesterday, the Prime Minister elaborated on the new measures:

PM Dean Barrow
"The replacement of trial by jury in murder cases, we are looking as well that attempted murder and conspiracy to murder, abetment for murder. In all those instances we want to replace trial by jury with trail by a judge. There is no need for constitutional amendment the way we read the law in order to do that, so that is certainly going, but at the same time we will be introducing the bill to amend the constitution to provide for preventative detention. Finally we will be amending the constitution to ensure that the death penalty is going to be beyond constitutional challenge. We are going to deal with that Pratt and Morgan situation which said in terms of the Privy Council if you are on death row for in excess of 5 years we are going to deal with that. We will still have laws under those constitutional changes that will spell out, that will flesh out how actually for example implement the preventative detention. Now you can't hold somebody for more than 48 hours. The constitution will say you can pass a law that will allow you to hold somebody for 14 or 21 days or whatever but that law will then have to be written up that will say before the police can grab somebody they must make some kind of application to some tribunal - things like that, those details will find themselves in laws that will be drafted in accordance with the constitutional permission that will gain as a consequence of the amendments."

Government will also change the law as it relates to persons who have been convicted at the magistrate's court level but immediately apply for appeal and thus get a stay of the judgment and are free to go pending that appeal.

BEL Did Pay Tax, But Can't Pay PUC

Last night we told you about the situation with BEL where their 2010 financials said that, of the 6.5% tax on gross that the company pays, quote: "4.75% (of that) is being deferred to "to be recovered from customers." By the plain English meaning of "defer", we took that to mean putting it off until later. But there is a magical accounting explanation. A company rep told us last night that the company has paid the full 6.5% to GOB, but it is booked in their accounts as a deferred amount to be recovered later.

And the Prime Minister called today to say that indeed, he had checked and the full tax amount had been paid in to government.

But what hasn't been paid - and BEL accepts this - is its PUC fees. BEL says it simply does not have the cash to pay. And that's also why it claims it is behind on its payments to CFE, the Mexican Power Provider.

The Prime Minister says that regarding CFE, the government has "the situation...under review, and if circumstances warrant, then Government will have to intervene to ensure the non-interruption of that supply."