{"id":24884,"date":"2019-03-11T01:41:07","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T05:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/?p=24884"},"modified":"2019-03-11T01:41:09","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T05:41:09","slug":"belize-opposition-files-lawsuit-against-pm-and-two-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/belize-opposition-files-lawsuit-against-pm-and-two-others\/","title":{"rendered":"BELIZE-Opposition files lawsuit against PM and two others"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Opposition Leader John Brice\u00f1o and the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Julius Espat, have filed a lawsuit against Prime Minister Dean Barrow asking the High Court to grant a permanent injunction, preventing the Finance Minister from appropriating funds without the approval of the House of Assembly.<\/p>

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Brice\u00f1o and Espat in their lawsuit have also named Attorney General Michael Peyrefitte and Finance Secretary Joseph Waight as respondents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Julius Espat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The opposition People\u2019s United Party (PUP) legislators are asking the court to declare that the government has breached the Belize Constitution as well as the Finance and Audit Reform Act.<\/p>

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They are claiming that the dozens of General Revenue Supplementary Appropriations, amounting to BDZ$1.3 billion (One Belize dollar=US$0.49 cents) did not receive the required approval from the Parliament.<\/p>

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn that specific report the Auditor General stated that a warrant was not issued in the House. In fact for that year they didn\u2019t even come to the House. So that is even worse. It was acknowledged by the Financial Secretary that that was a fact,\u201d Espat said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said subsequent to that the Senate had a hearing with the monies spent for supplementaries also and the Financial Secretary was also questioned in the Senate.<\/p>

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe also agreed that this has been continuously occurring. In the claim, the attorneys are saying that even his body language and the way he responded it was like \u2018run of the day, it\u2019s cool, it\u2019s alright\u2019. But it is not cool. It is not right. It is not lawful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd we are saying that we don\u2019t want this Prime Minister to continue doing it and we don\u2019t want any future Prime Minister to do it. That is why we decided that it was important that we have the judiciary decided on it so that precedent can be set,\u201d Espat added.<\/p>

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Espat defended the decision to take the matter to the courts, saying it is necessary.<\/p>

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course it is because the Prime Minister is not listening to anybody. He is the best legal mind, You didn\u2019t see that he chastised a judge because he didn\u2019t agree to what he wants him to agree to? So how can you expect somebody like that to even think objectively?\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opposition Leader John Brice\u00f1o and the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Julius Espat, have filed a lawsuit against Prime Minister Dean Barrow asking the High Court to grant a permanent injunction, preventing the Finance Minister from appropriating funds without the approval of the House of Assembly. Brice\u00f1o and Espat in their lawsuit have also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional"],"yoast_head":"\nBELIZE-Opposition files lawsuit against PM and two others - Antigua News Room<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/belize-opposition-files-lawsuit-against-pm-and-two-others\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BELIZE-Opposition files lawsuit against PM and two others\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Opposition Leader John Brice\u00f1o and the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Julius Espat, have filed a lawsuit against Prime Minister Dean Barrow asking the High Court to grant a permanent injunction, preventing the Finance Minister from appropriating funds without the approval of the House of Assembly. 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