There are certain elements, integrally associated with the last administration, who after a protracted period of silence, have suddenly resurfaced to take the current government to task over issues of accountability. One of the strident calls they are making is for this government to account for the Oil and ensure that Belizeans get a fair share of the revenues from that industry.
The demand is fair, but the motive questionable, and the moral authority certainly lacking.
A fair demand, indeed, and the undeniable fact is that it is this current administration that has been making every effort to re-negotiate a fairer deal for Belizeans with respect to oil revenues, having inherited some admittedly one-sided profit
sharing agreements, not only with the private company that had already struck oil, but with virtually all those who had been granted exploration licenses by the last administration. It is also this current administration that has sought to ‘constitutionalize’, beyond doubt or question, the Belizean people’s ownership of the nation’s petroleum resources, a move vigorously opposed and obstructed by the selfsame, aforementioned elements.
Motive strikingly questionable because, again, these are the very same elements who are always howling and wailing about sanctity of contracts which, if not honoured by an incoming administration, would according to them, result in severe loss of investor confidence.
Moral authority patently lacking, for those leading the current demand are the very same persons who, while they were in control of the nation’s resources and affairs, negotiated and signed the oil exploration and profit-sharing agreements in question.
Notwithstanding, the call for a better accounting of the Oil and a fairer share of the revenues, is in principle, an appeal that no sensible Belizean and no responsible government can reject, especially considering the limited financial resources at our disposal, and the heavy demand on those resources to address the myriad of pressing social issues and economic challenges of unprecedented proportions.
The question of how and on what such additional revenues could be spent is for now, we must admit, an academic debate. What is not academic is the question of how the monies received and borrowed by previous administrations and by the current administration, were expended and are being expended, and to what end.
We cannot help but wonder why certain elements that have now resurfaced to clamour for proper accounting, made absolutely no effort to obtain or present any accounting of the Three Billion Dollars worth of public debt which they themselves helped to incur and to restructure into a super-bond that is now costing us 50 Million a year in debt-servicing, with much larger bullet payments to come in later years, up until 2029. On what were those monies expended? How did it help to upgrade the infrastructure of the country? In what ways did it improve the lives of the people? Those questions are still unanswered and can only be answered by the elements referred to earlier, who are now clamouring for proper accounting by this administration.
What we can answer, and have an obligation to answer, is the question of how and on what the funds handled by this administration, whether from revenues collected, grants received, or loans incurred, are being spent.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words; and indeed, a vivid picture is emerging of a UDP administration which, with extremely limited resources, is upgrading the infrastructure in every part of this country, to standards never yet attained, and doing so simultaneously; a picture that is in striking contrast with the record of that other administration which incurred and left behind Three Billion Dollars in debt, with nothing to show for it but a collapsing national infrastructure, an eviscerated Ministry of Public Works, and a despairing populace.
Accounting is best done in black and white, and indeed, when the accounting is done, you would have seen that the difference is like night and day.
