Tracy Panton Says It’s Time to Audit Belize’s Statutory Bodies

While much of the public discussion remains focused on the Smart Stream controversy, Opposition Leader Tracy Panton says Belizeans should also be paying closer attention to the country’s statutory bodies. Panton argues that organizations funded with public resources, but operating outside the central government system, must face the same level of scrutiny as government ministries. She argues it’s time to take a closer look at how agencies like the Belize Tourism Board manage public funds.

 

Tracy Panton, Leader of the Opposition

“The Belize Tourism Board sourced a fifty-million-dollar bond under the guise of tourism-related infrastructure for this country. We don’t know what projects have been financed on this fifty-million-dollar bond. We don’t know how those monies have been utilized, how they were – how decisions were taken in terms of which projects would be funded from the bond. You know, statutory bodies, while they are quasi-government, also utilize public funds. The taxes that BTB collects, instead of going into the consolidated fund, it goes directly to the BTB. So that those monies have to be accounted for, and they have to be – in my view, from what I see, that requires a forensic audit. I really believe that the time has come where the, these statutory bodies must be held to the same level of scrutiny as government ministries and departments I remember the former auditor general telling me when I served as chair of the Joint Public Accounts Committee that the leakages is over almost two million dollars a day. Two million dollars a day times three hundred and sixty-five days is a lot of money and it needs to be arrested. It needs to be mitigated, so those resources can be placed into social safety net programs that this country desperately needs at this time.”

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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