Dear Sir:

It is the opinion of the Belize Progressive Party (BPP) that the greatest evil that has emanated from the unadulterated greed of the PUDP system is the deprivation of our children’s right to an education.

It is the opinion of the BPP that the Faber’s Road Construction Project, valued at almost $8 million, signed on October 12, 2017, is yet another poor economic decision, one that reeks of the stench of corruption.

Instead of investing in our people, particularly our children, this obviously bloated contract will be invested in more “Keynesian” projects which force many of our “at-risk” children onto the streets without the knowledge or ability to provide for themselves, thereby fueling the societal ills of gang membership and ultimately crime.

Bloated contracts, also known as “kickbacks”, promote bribery. They are one of the premier forms of unjust enrichment, at the expense of the majority of the Belizeans.

The BPP favours a law whereby all contracts over $200,000 are put to bid and when such a bid is accepted, the amount along with the three lowest bids are published, to expose any potential kickbacks.

It is important to understand the holistic effects of these poor economic decisions. It is this type of activity that drives up the cost of taxes, such as gas prices, and thus the cost of living. The overpriced amounts of these bloated construction contracts result in higher taxes with the rich getting richer and the working class and poor paying, extensively in the long-run.

In this vein, we urge all unions, NGOs and Belize’s civil society to demand a complete and total system overhaul which will create the Republic of Belize, in which a president is directly elected. This, in turn, will set the stage for a true and real separation of powers, punctuated with effective controls that will minimize the potential for such abominable decisions, like the $8 million contract in question.

Belize Progressive Party