As public discourse in Belize continues to center on the high-profile Smart Stream controversy, Opposition Leader Tracy Panton is pushing to redirect public and legislative attention to a less-discussed but equally critical issue: the lack of rigorous oversight for the country’s statutory bodies. These quasi-governmental agencies operate outside the formal central government administrative structure, but rely entirely on public revenue to carry out their core functions – a reality that Panton argues demands the same level of financial scrutiny applied to cabinet ministries and central government departments.
Panton specifically named the Belize Tourism Board (BTB) as a key example of the gaps in accountability, pointing to the agency’s $50 million bond raised explicitly to fund tourism-focused infrastructure development across the country. To date, Panton claims, there has been no clear public accounting of which projects have drawn from this bond funding, how allocation decisions were made, or whether the disbursed funds have been used for their stated purposes.
Beyond bond proceeds, Panton highlighted the unique revenue structure of many statutory bodies that allows them to bypass the national consolidated fund. For the BTB, all taxes collected by the agency go directly to its own coffers rather than being deposited into the national public purse, creating what she calls an unacceptable lack of transparency around public money management.
“In my view, what we are seeing right now calls for a full forensic audit,” Panton stated during public remarks. Recalling her time serving as chair of the country’s Joint Public Accounts Committee, Panton shared a stark warning from the former auditor general: unaccounted public fund leakages from these entities add up to nearly $2 million per day. Multiply that figure across an entire year, and the total lost public resources amount to a staggering sum that Belize can ill afford to lose, she argued.
Panton emphasized that stopping these unaccounted leakages and strengthening oversight would free up critical public funding to expand and reinforce the social safety net programs that many vulnerable communities across Belize rely on, and that the country urgently needs at this juncture.
This report is transcribed from an evening television newscast broadcast.