26Th March 2015, in the National Assembly Chamber, !Belmopan, at 10:18 AM
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
!1 BELIZE ! No. HR26/1/11 ! HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES! th Thursday, 26 ! March, 2015 10:18! A.M ------! Pursuant to the Direction of Mr. Speaker on the 15th March 2015, the House met on Thursday, 26th March 2015, in the National Assembly Chamber, !Belmopan, at 10:18 AM. ! ! Members Present: The Hon. Michael Peyrefitte, Speaker The Hon. Dean O. Barrow (Queen’s Square), Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and Economic Development The Hon. Gaspar Vega (Orange Walk North), Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Natural Resources and Agriculture The Hon. Erwin R. Contreras (Cayo West), Minister of Trade, Investment Promotion, Private Sector Development and Consumer Protection The Hon. Patrick J. Faber (Collet), Minister of Education, Youth and Sports The Hon. Manuel Heredia Jr. (Belize Rural South), Minister of Tourism and Culture The Hon. Anthony Martinez (Port Loyola), Minister of Human Development, Social Transformation and Poverty Alleviation The Hon. John Saldivar (Belmopan), Minister of National Security The Hon. Wilfred P. Elrington (Pickstock), Attorney General and Minister of Foreign Affairs The Hon. Rene Montero (Cayo Central), Minister of Works and Transport The Hon. Pablo S. Marin (Corozal Bay), Minister of Health The Hon. Santino Castillo (Caribbean Shores), Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development The Hon. Hugo Patt (Corozal North), Minister of State in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Agriculture The Hon. Herman Longsworth (Albert), Minister of State in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports The Hon. Mark King (Lake Independence), Minister of State in the Ministry of Human Development, Social Transformation and Poverty Alleviation The Hon. Edmond G. Castro (Belize Rural North), Minister of State in the Ministry of Works and Transport, Deputy Speaker The Hon. Omar Figueroa (Cayo North), Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister The Hon. Elvin Penner (Cayo North East) The Hon. Francis Fonseca (Freetown), Leader of the Opposition The Rt. Hon. Said Musa (Fort George) The Hon. John Briceño (Orange Walk Central) The Hon. Florencio Marin Jr. (Corozal South East) The Hon. Michael Espat (Toledo East) The Hon. Julius Espat (Cayo South) The Hon. Dolores Balderamos Garcia (Belize Rural Central) !2 The Hon. Rodwell Ferguson (Stann Creek West) The Hon. Oscar Requena (Toledo West) The Hon. Ivan Ramos (Dangriga) The Hon. Jose Mai (Orange Walk South) !The Hon. Ramiro Ramirez (Corozal South West) Members! Absent: The Hon. Michael Finnegan (Mesopotamia), Minister of Housing and Urban Development – Absent due to the death of his mother. The Hon. Marco Tulio Mendez (Orange Walk! East) !MR. SPEAKER in the Chair. !PRAYERS by Pastor Conrad Arzu. ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE SPEAKER MR.SPEAKER: Honourable Members, please allow me to make two acknowledgements. I would like to acknowledge some students here all the way from Corozal, from the Corozal Community College. They are here to observe the budget debates and I hope we don’t disappoint them over the next two days or if just for the day that they are here today. So welcome students from Corozal Community! College (CCC). Enjoy and learn and thanks for coming. Secondly, Honourable Members, if some of us may notice some of us, the glaring absence of our beloved colleague from Mesopotamia. I would like to take this opportunity to say to the Finnegan’s and Myvette’s family, our condolences for the passing of his mother. The Minister for Housing has indicated to me today, and yesterday as well, that he would not be attending the debate, we’ll surely miss him. I ask all of you to keep him in our prayers and to wish the family well during their! time of bereavement. HON. D. BARROW (Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Economic Development): Mr. Speaker, If you would allow me simply to join you in offering condolences to the Minister of Housing, the Honourable Member for Mesopotamia. As most people in this House will know, Minister Finnegan and I have been friends from our teenage years, which is a long, long, long time ago. It means that I have known his mother, Ms. Esmay, for those very many years, and, in fact, there is another dimension to the connection, she is the grandmother of my eldest! child. I, therefore, feel her death, personally, as well as of course very much so on behalf of her son, our colleague, and her other children. She was a fine lady, a tower of strength, tremendous mother, and wife, and certainly a sort of the earth Belizean. So, I am grateful to you for allowing me to associate myself with the condolences you expressed on behalf of the entire! Chamber. Thank you. PRESENTATION OF REPORT! FROM COMMITTEE HON. J. SALDIVAR (Minister of National Security): Mr. Speaker, I rise to present the Report from the Finance and Economic Development Committee! on the Alba Petrocaribe Belize Energy Limited Loan Motion, 2015. MR. SPEAKER: Honourable Members, that Report is ordered to lie on the Table.! !3 INTRODUCTION! OF BILL !1. Petrocaribe Loans Bill, 2015. HON. D. BARROW (Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Economic Development): Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce a Bill for an Act to make special provisions for borrowing money from Alba Petrocaribe (Belize Energy) Limited; and to provide for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. !The Bill has the recommendation of the Cabinet. And perhaps I should say a few words in explanation upon the introduction of this Bill. I noticed that on the news last night, some of the people from the other side had all sorts of absolutely untrue things to say, kind of continuation of the effort that we saw right from the start, to demonize the government with respect to the Petrocaribe funding and signaling their intention once again, to try to derail what has been a wonderful initiative that has powered development and transformation all across this country. (Applause) Mr. Speaker, we are not! going to allow that to happen. We have come to this House. There was just the Report from the Committee with respect to the latest Resolution, the latest Motion that we introduced into this Chamber with respect to Petrocaribe Funds. We explained time and again, the peculiar nature of the arrangement. The fact that it is not properly provided for, in terms of the currents laws on our statute book, the Finance and Audit (Reform) Act, and that every effort we have made in terms of bringing before this House, retro-respective loan motions to validate the borrowing, supplementary Bills, now Acts, to in fact, retro-respectively again, validate the spending under Petrocaribe. Everything that we’ve done has set out on each occasion every last detail of the spending done by way of Petrocaribe to make sure that there is utter and complete transparency with respect to what has been taken place by way of the transformation. Notwithstanding that, I repeat, there has been this insistence on the part of those on the other side that they will do everything to try to take away from the country of Belize, the tremendous boom, the! tremendous windfall that Petrocaribe represents. They are advised by lawyers who pick at every last little thing they can find to try to question and to quarrel with Petrocaribe. It is in that context that our own legal advisors made the recommendation to us that we now pass a special Act to deal with Petrocaribe and the funds flowing there from, in a way that will make the provisions that we simply can’t extract a piece out of the current legislation dealing with loans and dealing with the spending of loan monies. So, that is all this is Bill is seeking to do. Consolidate what has already happen, retro- respectively, validate what has happen by way of this specific Act, focusing on and dealing exclusively with Petrocaribe and provide that going forward, there is now the authority of the House to borrow in the peculiar circumstances that prevent us from beforehand, bringing to the House the details of the borrowing since we can’t know what the sums are going to be, given the sliding scale, given the, as I! said the peculiarity of the arrangement. I won’t even call his name, one Member on the other side, you know let me try to restrain myself, said that under this Bill, if it were to be passed, I would be able to write a Petrocaribe cheque to my family. How ridiculous! How absolutely outrageous! Mr. Speaker, if this Bill is passed, all it does is to put beyond question our ability, the authority, the jurisdiction to continue to borrow from APBEL, to continue to make use of the Petrocaribe Funds. All the monies will still be a part of the Consolidate Revenue Fund of this country. The Central !4 Bank will continue to keep the monies in the special account. Every time there is any withdrawal to continue to fund the transformation of this country, it goes through the Ministry of Finance under the complete supervision oversight of the Financial Secretary and all the officials in the Ministry of Finance, who have time and again, come before the nation to say, this is all above the board and here are the details. It cannot change as well the oversight that Venezuela, continues to maintain over the funds. This is a bilateral program and we account to Venezuela. And unlike them who diverted the $20 million for Housing, (Applause) taking the Venezuelans completely by surprise, we, periodically, send them or meet with them, and provide them with the figures, with all the details of the spending. We will continue to do that.