Corruption Games in the Jewel By Gilroy Usher, Sr. Last week Belize was rocked by another major corruption scandal. This time it involved the illegal sale of a Belizean passport ,and come less than a week after another major corruption scandal at the Social Investment Fund (S.I.F.) In this latest hustling, a millionaire Taiwanese ,who is in prison in Taiwan and has never visited Belize is sold a Belizean passport in less than ten days. And the passport is delivered to him personally in his cell. That’s real fast work because Belizeans have to wait at least a month to receive a passport in the country. The illegal sale of Belizean passport is an ongoing brisk and very lucrative business in the Jewel . Before this latest passport scandal numerous passports and visas have been sold since the Borrow administration came to office in 2008 on a pledge to take drastic action against even the slightest hint of corruption. As has always been the case, the recent sale of a Belizean passport was facilitated by powerful people all the way to the top of the government. This time Minister of State Elvin Penner became too confident that other people had his back and did not take the necessary steps to cover his tracks in the deal. In an exercise of damage control once the scandal broke, the Prime Minister immediately fired Penner and vowed to bring all those involved in this latest corruption to justice. Note however although Penner was implicated in a major white collar crime that has been very harmful to the country he has not been charged with any offence ,and he has not been offered any incentive to spill the beans on all those big persons who were involved in this latest corrupt deal. As with the corruption scandal with SIF, the San Antonio Road, the sale of Rosewood, and the KHMH to name a few examples Dean Borrow never charges anyone criminally for involvement with corruption under his watch. All the P.M. talk about getting tough on corruption is therefore hot air. We’ve heard that talk before. It’s the same scratch record to cool off the public outrage at what has happened again as quick as possible. No big fish is ever prosecuted in Belize for corruption. Not before and not now. After each corruption scandal the government vows to implement new measures to prevent the same occurrence , but lo and behold, whenever a scandal breaks at the same government department again, it is discovered that only little cosmetic changes were made after the public outrage over the previous scandal. One of the reasons why corruption is so prevalent in government is because a number of the leaders of the Public Service Union ,which should stand up for the rights of government employees, are in the pockets of the ruling politicians. Such union leaders have sold out for a few dollars and are controlled by ruling politicians , who call their tune or decide what they will complain about or support. That’s very bad for transparency in the country . With such a situation the politicians and their cronies have no deterrence to engage in corrupt deals. That’s because they know that they can rely on the Public Service Union to remain quiet as they throw a couple low level public officers under the bus to cool public anger about any corruption scandal. Corruption including the sale of Belizean passports has been a very lucrative business in the Jewel for decades; many Belizeans and foreigners have become wealthy from the undertaking. It will only end when we ,Belizeans, elect people with integrity to office ,and amend our laws to allow for stiff fines and prison sentences for those ,who are found guilty of engaging in corruption.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 22:57:04 +0000
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