PM Says Mira Supplies Contract are More Perception Than Corruption

Even as the government works to introduce stricter controls on future spending, questions remain about contracts and purchases already made. Prime Minister John Briceño says the ongoing audit of the Ministry of National Defense will be key to uncovering exactly how public funds were spent over the past six years. Today, attention turned to a controversial purchase of boots for the Belize Defense Force, with the Prime Minister facing questions about allegations that taxpayers may have paid more than they should have. Here’s what he had to say.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“It’s obviously something that, that raises questions and makes you, it gets you upset. I’ve, again, I’ve not seen the entire thing. It’s just what you all are revealing. So it’s certainly something that I would not support. We have a lot of work, and I’m not trying to deflect. I’m just trying to deal with what we have. We have this right now in front of us. We’re going to deal with it. And as I said to cabinet from last week and this week I repeated. We don’t only have to do the things right, we also have to appear to do the things right. For instance, what I’ve been told when it comes to the Miras, it gives the impression as if they were only getting money and were not delivering goods but the goods were delivered. But it gives – it really leads into question whether you’re just giving it to one person. So that’s the point I was making, that you can’t only do things right, you also have to appear to be doing things right.”

 

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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