PM Briceño: “Javier Briceño is my Brother.”
Fresh leaked invoices from the Ministry of Defense have drawn Prime Minister John Briceño’s brother into the government’s widening procurement scandal.
The newly obtained records show that the Ministry of Defense paid $242,230.09 to two individuals connected to the same Orange Walk address. One of them is Javier Reul Briceño, the Prime Minister’s brother.
The Prime Minister said he was unaware of the transactions and insisted that the ongoing investigation by the Auditor General would determine whether any wrongdoing occurred.
“I have said this many times, and I repeat it again, the Auditor General is doing an investigation, and anybody that’s found to be doing anything wrong, they are going to be held liable.”
Briceño said he could not explain the payments because he does not oversee the government’s SmartStream financial system. “I don’t even know how SmartStream works,” he said.
When asked what his brother supplied to the Ministry of Defense, the Prime Minister replied that he did not know. “I do not know,” he said. “If anything was wrong, even if Javier, anybody, they will have to answer that.”