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THE BELIZE TIMES
Barrow Administration Sanctions Corruption
Tuesday, 07 March 2017 The revelation that a UDP insider and former UDP Deputy Mayor of Belize, Eric Chang, bought stolen Visas through a conduit from a crooked Immigration official would have caused great alarm in any normal country. It is a crime. The fact that Eric Chang then tried to coerce Immigration officials to fix those stolen Visas to make them usable would have resulted in prosecution in any normal country. It is, in fact, also a crime. But in Belize, there will be no prosecution or arrest of Chang or his sidekick, UDP insider Patrick Tillett, because this Barrow administration appears to condone corruption at every level. What did Chang want with those Visas? Who would have been brought into Belize using those Visas? Where would they have gone after their stay in Belize? Doesn’t this reek of human trafficking, which is another crime? Valid questions, but nobody in the Barrow administration will provide any answers. It is the same with the Prime Minister’s good friend Gaspar Vega. So much evidence has been compiled against Vega, evidence which points to blatant, brazen, widespread corruption in the Ministry of Natural Resources. Vega manipulated and misappropriated the assets of Belizeans to enrich himself and members of his family. He used public monies to enrich his son. The evidence is all there. But there will be no investigation. There will be no arrest and no prosecution. Instead, the Prime Minister moved one of his more malleable lackeys to the Ministry where he is sure things will be kept quiet.
Currently Vega and every member of his family still enjoy all the spoils of his corruption at the Ministry of Natural Resources, and taxpayers are still paying for the fuel he uses in his luxury Lexus SUV which he was allowed to bring in duty-free. Apparently, if you are corrupt under the Dean Barrow administration it is a good thing. You are rewarded instead of punished. It has been the same thing with Penner, who not only escaped any prosecution for his obviously criminal actions, but still got perks from the Barrow administration to assure his silence. Edmond Castro, a small time hustler but arguably one of the most corrupt UDP politicians of this current era, was rewarded with his own portfolio where he can continue to enrich himself to his heart’s content. It is difficult to remember that the Barrow administration came to power on an anti-corruption platform, since corruption has now characterized all that administration’s terms in office. Prime Minister Dean Barrow continues to turn a blind eye to the corruption at every level of his government, even as the country continues to get a black eye from the region and the rest of the world. Mr. Barrow is an abject failure. So shall it be written in history.
12 MAR
2017
DAH FOOL DIH TALK…!
Thursday, 09 March 2017 UDP insider Patrick Tillett has gone before the Senate Select Committee to admit under oath that he took money to try to get Visas approved for Chinese Nationals. More incredible than that is that he told the Senate Committee that 6 of the 8 stolen visas from the Immigration Department ended up in passports for his “clients”. Rather than report that he was jilted out of money by an immigration agent, he says he decided to take a $30,000 financial hit to sweep it under the rug. Tillett claims that he performed these Visa services only twice, and the second time he was jilted by a “Mr. Middleton.” He testified that he was approached by persons acting on behalf of 6 Chinese nationals who wanted to come to Belize. He charged those persons $6,000 each, and in those fees, $2,000 was to go towards the fees for the Government of Belize, $3,000 was paid to immigration agent “Mr. Middleton,” and $1,000 was his fee. He said that he checked to make sure that the applications had all the required documentation before handing over the application package to the “Mr. Middleton.” From the start of his testimony, the Senate had great difficulty believing him because they could not understand why Tillett chose to pay the immigration agent such a high fee. Senate Chairman Aldo Salazar, after hearing him describe the transaction, said, “There was no need for Mr. Middleton. You were giving away $3,000 because you only paid him to take the documents to Belmopan, which is where you live. You could have taken 15 minutes to take it to Immigration yourself.” That’s when Tillett admitted
that he did not want to be the face of the operation. When he was asked why, he said, “If you look at the history of Immigration for the past 20 year, I don’t think anybody wants to be seen running in and out of immigration every day. And so, I didn’t want to be involved. I paid somebody to do that part.” Both Senator Courtenay and Senator Salazar kept pressing him to explain the role of immigration agent “Mr. Middleton,” and in the course of the conversation, Salazar told him, “I’m not saying I’ve drawn this, but the most attractive inference is that that sum of money was paid because the intention was well, you do what you have to do to get these visas, and that’s why it costs $3,000.” Tillett claimed that when he realized that there was a problem with the Visas he took them to Immigration Officer George Reynolds who told him that they were authentic, but they needed the stamp and signature of the officer who issued the visas. Tillett says that he gave them back to “Mr. Middleton” to get the stamp and signature, but realized that it wasn’t an embossed seal. What “Mr. Middleton” returned with a second time were visas with a cashier’s stamp. He said that’s when he realized that fraud had been committed, and scrapped the deal. According to Tillett, he had already paid “Mr. Middleton” the $30,000, which included the immigration agent’s cut, and the fees for all 6 visas that was to be paid to the Immigration Department. He never made any report to the police or to the Immigration Department, or any authority that such a crime had been committed against him and against the Government. Senator Courtenay explained to him that his willingness to take the financial hit, plus the $3,000 fee that “Mr. Middleton” got lends credibility to the suspicion that he knew that he was running shady immigration business. Tillett said that he didn’t agree and that it was not his intention that visas be stolen or illegally issued. As regards the entire testimony of the UDP insider, Senator Elena Smith put it succinctly, stating that she was reminded of that Belizean saying, “Dah fool dih talk, but dah no fool dih listen.”