Wednesday, September 29, 2010

BELIZE GOVERNMENT FINANCIAL AFFAIRS IN TOTAL CHAOS!

BELIZE GOVERNMENT FINANCIAL AFFAIRS IN TOTAL CHAOS?

There are no adjectives to describe the chilling and frightening show held on TV by the Chamber of Commerce BUSINESS PERSPECTIVES PROGRAM, regarding the government handling of the financial affairs of Belize.
Two guests were on the program. One was Joseph Waight, Chief Financial Officer and the other was Senator Hulse, a well known respected, articulate, renegade government reformer.
The end of the program summed up the very nice explanations of how the government budget was organized and run, and then how it actually worked in practice. The latter a totally different thing, from the theory of the civil service.
At heart was missing millions of dollars from different ministries, and a government ministry that lost over a 120 vehicles and doesn’t have a clue where they went, or how? To just mention a few of the things a recent AUDITOR GENERAL”s report exposed.
There is a Public Accounts Committee that is supposed to provide a supervisory role, run by politicians, but has not functioned for 15 years and is unable to function, because it is political.
In essence, Belize has NO CHECKS AND BALANCES between the politicians, the law making ability, the enforcement of financial and budgetary laws, and does not have any capability of ACCOUNTABILITY, or TRANSPARENCY. Our government regulatory financial affairs are a CRUEL JOKE!
Government revenues are just a PIGGY BANK for politicians. They just brush complaints aside and ignore them. They steal and waste with impunity. They control all levels and facets of revenue spending and controls. Of which there are none, but the capability of a single man, the FINANCE MINISTER, who is usually Prime Minister and also leader of the WINNER TAKE ALL political party system that controls parliament. ( certainly a case for a switch to proportional representation )
The CABINET is run by politicians. The Parliament is controlled and run by the CABINET and the same politicians. The same politicians make up any supervisory and accountability committees. Senator Hulse said it plain. They the politicians cannot POLICE THEMSELVES. Such a method does not work, never has worked and never will. The wolf cannot be put in charge of the hen house as a security guard.
The financial system of the Belize government has not only broken down, it does not even exist. Except perhaps on paper and in the imagination and rhetoric of politicians.
Great tv show! The Chamber of Commerce are to be congratulated. Senator Hulse hit all the main faults during the program, why our financial affairs are such a mess.

That certainly makes clear why we have such a massive political created national debt, ruinous in scope. Senator Hulse is to be congratulated on a clear analysis of the faults within the current system and suggested ways of correcting the way our country is so badly managed and run.

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