MISUSE BY UDP OF VENEZUELA POVERTY GRANT MONIES IN BELIZE!

* Prime Minister Dean Barrow, puts forth lame excuse for misuse of poor people poverty housing GRANTS from Venezuela.

(AN OPINION PIECE!)

PM Barrow of Belize puts damage control on Poverty Grant disbursements!

We caught the interview on television Monday evening, to do with the Venezuelan Housing Grants. It was very obvious from what the Prime Minister of Belize said; that he was trying his best to cover up UDP CORRUPTION in the housing grant process, from Venezuela.
We didn’t buy his story, but was willing to listen. The whistle blower, whoever it was and the newspapers over the last weekend that published the story are believable. I can say that from witnessing such programs many times over the past 45 years in Belize.
The way the Prime Minister Barrow explained the process. The Area Representative ( UDP ) would submit names to a COMMITTEE for housing grants. They were supposed to be for helping the poor. Which most people understood to be building houses and giving of them with lots, in some sort of program to poor people in need of houses. It didn’t mean renovations to existing houses, which already puts the owners in the middle class, who own land and a house of some kind, which costs money. They have an asset they can mortgage for a renovation loan. This was money earmarked for the POOR. People who already own a lot and a house, no matter how decrepit are not the poor. They are middle class. Nor should it have meant interference by a political area representative biased toward his or her campaign supporters.
Now if the Prime Minister of Belize, Dean Barrow had said, there were gazetted a list of names of qualified poor people needing homes in the GAZETTE, or someplace for the public to read, we could more understand the process. Then if there was not enough money for everybody who was poor and needy, then you held a LOTTERY, which method has been tried in previous administrations.
The give away; was the PM’s verbal qualification that the AREA REPRESENTATIVE a political party person got to contribute to the distribution process. Pure politics.
Weighing the excuses given by the Prime Minister, we find his sorry tale, weak and false. This was a campaign supporter give-a-way and I agree with the whistle blower, whoever it was and the newspaper whichever published the story.
The story resulted in 2 points on the corruption report card results to be deducted from the previous score of 50, down to 48 on the score card. The judgment is that the loss of points is justified and that the UDP acted corruptly when they could have done it properly and didn’t.
The Prime Minister also loses points for integrity, character and honesty for making such a blatant cover up attempt. His ethics are less than good.

The story is not over yet, because this political party corrupt use of poor peoples housing grants from Venezuela, being used through the political party chain of commmand, is obviously going to escalate in eventual cost and I wouldn't be surprised to see it increase from $20 million to $75 million over the next two decades as a direct tax cost to citizens all over Belize.