2 weeks ago
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Minister of Immigration, Governance and Labour Kareem Musa has called for stronger safeguards within the government’s financial-management system following the SmartStream controversy. The matter led Oscar Mira and Florencio Marin Junior to step away from their Cabinet responsibilities after records raised questions about payments and procurement at the Ministry of National Defence and Border Security. The records showed hundreds of government payments to businesses connected to members of Mira’s family, including multiple invoices processed for the same supplier on a single day. On September 14, 2023, twelve invoices totalling more than $103,000 were reportedly approved for one of Mira’s siblings. Musa said SmartStream, or any replacement system, should automatically flag multiple payments made to the same supplier within a short period.
Kareem Musa, Minister of Immigration, Governance and Labour: “We are one year into our second term in office. We are four years out from the next general elections. The People’s United Party government is in a good position to make it right by the Belizean people. We have an opportunity to fix procurement which has bedeviled us for decades not just this this PUP administration, past UDP and PUP administrations. We have an opportunity now to make it right for the current procurement system and moving forward. And what does that entail? As the Prime Minister said we’re going to create an actual procurement unit, but in the meantime, we also have to put in place alerts for these under $10,000 payments that are coming out, because there’s no way that the Ministry of Finance should not be alerted when a particular ministry is making so many payments in one particular day. And so there has to be alerts put in place and as the Prime Minister said anything under $50,000 we have to publish every single contract and every bid that was put in for that contract and that might not be something that the people who are bidding are happy about but at the end of the day transparency and satisfying the Belizean public that they are getting the best value for money is what is important. So I think moving forward we have an opportunity to fix that and I personally think while it may seem like a strange strained relationship I think people have more trust and confidence in the PUP administration to get things right and so I think I feel confident that that’s what we’re going to do.”
Musa explained that even when individual payments fall below the $10,000 threshold, several transactions involving the same supplier on the same day should trigger additional scrutiny. He said automated safeguards could prevent larger purchases from being divided into smaller payments to avoid higher approval requirements. Prime Minister John Briceño has ordered an audit of procurement and financial activity at the ministry covering 2015 to 2026. He has also assumed interim responsibility for the ministry while the review continues.
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