Officials Find No Evidence of Misconduct in Mira Contract Review

Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Defence and Border Security, Major (Retired) Francis Usher, says a review of contracts, invoices, and payment records involving Mira’s Fruits and Vegetables found no evidence of wrongdoing.  The issue has remained in the spotlight following the leak of SmartStream payment records showing numerous transactions made to vendor Jenny Shubra Mira, the sister of former Minister of State for Defence Oscar Mira. While questions have been raised about the volume and structure of some payments, CEO Usher says the ministry’s review found that the procurement process was properly followed and that the goods paid for were delivered.  Speaking with Love News, Usher said concerns surrounding one particular contract prompted a closer examination, but officials found nothing untoward in the contracting, invoicing, or payment process.

Francis Usher, CEO, Ministry of National Defense and Border Security: “I’ve been doing research into before my time to ensure we don’t make any of the, we don’t have any discrepancies that may pop up again. But what I can say is that the there was one invoice that was submitted and then retracted from the ministry and then subsequent invoices were then submitted. But one of the invoice numbers matched the previous invoice and that’s why I believe they put the dot there. It’s not something that we practice. It’s not a regular or routine thing within the ministry. It certainly was not an attempt to fool the treasury or fool the ministry of finance or to do anything nefarious or anything like that. It’s something that is not common practice. It’s something that won’t happen again. And I want to reiterate that every single item that’s purchased we ensure that we follow the procurement process as published in the finance and audit reform act. We do also go through the open tendering process on a yearly basis to ensure that we’re getting best value for money. And we ensure that every time we procure or we purchase items that they have the five necessary components. We start off by getting a quotation which will tell us how much of each item is going to be supplied and the price. We ensure we have a requisition which outlines or justifies why the particular unit within the BDF or Coast Guard needs those items, how many people they’re feeding, et cetera. We then issue a purchase order. The items are delivered based on the purchase order. And once they’re delivered there is a way bill produced that’s signed by both a representative from the BDF as well as a representative from the business. And when the way bill and the invoice is submitted, payment is processed. Because of the volume of things that are purchased and the amount of people we’re feeding it does amount to a lot of money but it’s money that we budget for on an annual basis.”

CEO Usher also explained that the procurement of fresh fruits and vegetables became an important operational requirement for the Belize Defence Force and Belize Coast Guard following a wellness assessment.  

Francis Usher, CEO, Ministry of National Defense and Border Security: “Another thing that many people do not know is that we got the Ministry of Health, we partnered with the Ministry Health to come in and assess the diet of the soldiers because some soldiers because some soldiers were facing serious health issues right after retirement which was still very early in their lives. And so when they found out that we were eating goods that were too high in sodium and things like that. So we went and we started to procure more healthy, more fresh foods. And so more vegetables, more fruits, things like that. But there’s nothing out of the ordinary. We feed a lot of people in both the BDF and the Coast Guard on a daily basis. And I would challenge anyone to go and ask the soldiers, definitely in the last year, have the quality of the different food items that they eat and that they consume on a daily basis whether when they’re in a camp or deployed to the jungle, have the quality of those food items increased. And I am almost certain you will get a hundred percent. I will, I knew it’s not good to speak in absolutes, but I’m almost positive you’ll get a hundred percent agreement that the quality of foods has gotten better and that we’re getting good value for money so much so that last year we were able to save funds and reallocate it into purchasing more kits, more equipment, more ammunition for training. All of these are things that we did through the cost saving measures that we’ve been implementing.”