UHS guarantee is no good, says Sen. Godwin Hulse
Posted: 26/04/2007 - 10:22 PM
Author: Adele Ramos
On Monday, April 23, Opposition Leader, Hon. Dean Barrow, made public his sentiments about the unlimited guarantee the Prime Minister, Hon. Said Musa, gave to the Belize Bank to settle the debt of Universal Health Services. Subsequently, Senator Godwin Hulse, representative of the private sector, visited Belmopan to take a look at the document for himself. What the Senator saw outraged him, and he says that if the Government insists on paying that $33 million bill for UHS, the private sector must flex its muscles and withhold their taxes from the Government until it corrects the situation.
Senator Hulse says that Belizeans must prevent the Government from paying the $33 million debt. Businesses could deposit their tax payments in a bank—not the Belize Bank—and Government will have to listen, because they can’t arrest half of the country, he added.
According to the Senator, the correct procedure is for the Government to seek legislative approval from the National Assembly for both the guarantee and the payment of any debt. Senator Hulse points to the Constitution—the Supreme Law of Belize—which stipulates that National Assembly approval is required for monies to be spent from the public purse (the Consolidated Revenue Fund). The Constitution also states that any debt has to paid from this fund, and so the previously proposed land swap to the Belize Bank to settle UHS’s debt would have been illegal.
In the event that the Government would have wanted to use the land to settle the debt, he said, Government would have had to sell the land and deposit the proceeds into the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and then the debt payments would have had to be made from that fund—but not before the members of the National Assembly approve it.
The ruling People’s United Party has a majority of members of the House, and those members are usually unified in their position. However, one member has already publicly said that he does not support any decision from Government to pay that private debt. That Minister, Hon. Mark Espat, said that he did not even know of the Government guarantee until weeks ago.
Since a member of the ruling party has broken ranks on the issue, the Opposition can call for a division in the House when the matter comes up for a vote, and then all the elected representatives will have to publicly say whether or not they support Government’s settlement of the $33 million debt, the Senator elaborated. It will only take 15 yes votes to get past the House.
The Senator dares the House members to support the payment of the $33 million, and then go back to the people and seek re-election.
“If the people return them to power, it means that the people like what’s happening and I have been barking in the wind,” he asserted.
Senator Hulse is convinced that Government cannot close the deal with the Belize Bank without first going to the National Assembly, because the Prime Minister cannot circumvent the law.
As to reports that the Prime Minister has moved one step further in solidifying the settlement of the debt by penning a deed of settlement with the bank, Senator Hulse said that if that were really the case, then he would call for the Prime Minister to resign.
“How can a government in its right mind give an open-ended guarantee?” Senator Hulse questioned.
After viewing the document on Tuesday, Senator Hulse told us that he takes particular issue with clauses 3, 9, 10 and 16. The first stipulates that the bank does not have to exhaust its recourses for the settlement of the debt and can go straight to the Government of Belize, if it so chooses, for repayment of the UHS debt.
Clause 9 says that the guarantee is in addition to any other existing guarantee unless any prior guarantee is surrendered on the delivery of the new guarantee.
Senator Hulse concludes that this Government of Belize guarantee is in addition to the guarantee penned earlier by the Development Finance Corporation of Belize, a government owned corporation, because when the DFC’s auditors did the 2005 accounts, which came after the December 9, 2004 date on the Government guarantee, they noted that the DFC guarantee for UHS was still in effect.
The Senator is also concerned about clause 10, which he says gives the bank the right to determine what the amount owing is, and the government, under the guarantee, is told that it has to pay whatever the bank determines is due.
He also noted that it is public officers who sign cheques and make payments from the public purse, and if any public officer makes payments to settle this debt without National Assembly approval, they could be held personally liable under the law.
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