UDP CITY AND TOWN COUNCILS IN TURMOIL!

(Stories Courtesy Channel 5 News @ http://www.channel5belize.com)

Christine Perriott asked to resign by Mayor Moya…

One day after the U.D.P. City Council kicked off its municipal elections campaign attempting to show some semblance of unity, Mayor Zenaida Moya finds herself once again at the epicenter of another controversy. This time there is plenty more drama and it surrounds the adversarial Human Resources Director, Christine Perriott who was asked by the mayor to resign. It is no secret that there has been bad blood between the two, and while Perriott says she won’t go her future at City Hall remains uncertain tonight. According to Perriott, the request was put to her on Friday and she was told that if she did not resign, the matter would be taken up in Cabinet. Perriott refused to step down and on Monday sent off a scathing letter to the Mayor accusing her of lying and alleging that Moya has been giving her a bad name and using her as a scapegoat for the mayor’s unpopular decisions.

P.U.P. candidates protest financial nondisclosure in O.W.

It is political season and around the country both the incumbent U.D.P. and the opposition Peoples United Party, are on the campaign trail for the March fourth poll. As the election heats up, the buzz words of transparency and accountability are resonating as audits of town and city councils are still pending and accusations of irregularities continue to surface. In the last showdown at the October, 2008 U.D.P. convention in Belize City, Mayor Zenaida Moya was accused of unauthorized spending. Today in Orange Walk, the U.D.P. controlled council was challenged for nondisclosure of overdue financial statements.

Jose Sanchez, Reporting:The heavy rains early morning did not deter a group of Orange Walkenos from protesting the failure of the Town Council to release financial statements of the Council. The group marched midtown to the Town Hall to present a petition singed by over 2000 persons to the U.D.P. Mayor Ravei Gonzalez. There have been rumblings of financial irregularities for some time and with the recent revelation of a loan made by the council from a Pawn Shop with a whopping fifty percent interest, the protesters were energized.

Ramon Cervantes, P.U.P. Mayoral Candidate:

“Since November fourteenth, I sent a letter to the mayor asking for disclosure of the financial statements and record from 2006 to presents. He answered me about the beginning of December in a letter stating that the statements have been published in a local newspaper; it didn’t give the edition, the date, anything. In other words, he told us go and find it if you want. I think this is ample time this is over two months and the people want to know. The loan from a pawn shop for nine thousand dollars and they paid at a rate of fifty-nine percent yearly interest. Now that loan, in addition to the loan being made at such a usurious rate, it was falsified also because the voucher said that the loan was made from and paid to the Orange Walk Business Association, which in the Business Association had no knowledge of it. Actually, it was a pawn shop they loaned it from so it amounts to falsification also.”