And this complaint even reached the hearing of the US State Department's visiting Assistant Secretary. That's because the Leader of the Opposition, Shyne Barrow, brought up the matter during his discussion with Brian Nichols last night. He said that it was important that international partners were aware of this type of alleged fraud, especially given the eligibility requirements of the 125 million US dollar Millennium Challenge Corporation grant.
Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
"I definitely discussed it with Secretary of State Brian Nichols last night as you saw, we met and deputy party chairman Alberto August was in that meeting and he actually, along with legal counsel was there in the courtroom arguing and the Magistrate has taken the argument serious. I believe that the Magistrate went to visit the premises today and there have been many adjournments, they have three lawyers, top notch lawyers, Dickie Bradley, Leeroy Banner, and Marcel Cardona, Mr Constructive Resignation himself. So yes, but we would hope that the OAS, that the Americans and all of the regional partners would be aware of these things and broach the subject with the government to ensure that corruption, significant corruption is not interfering with our democracy. You know part of the Millennium Challenge Cooperation grant, part of the criterium is anti-corruption, you have to be a government and a country that is not corrupt so while there is rampant corruption in Belize, we are grateful that we met the threshold but that does not give the PUP government free license to continue with these fraudulent corrupt activities."
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