PSU Calls for Auditor General’s Resignation Amid Transparency Concerns

During today’s protest, the Public Service Union (PSU) called for the resignation of Auditor General Dorothy Bradley, accusing her of failing to address a significant backlog of audits and lacking transparency in its operations. The PSU’s demand follows what it says is years of frustration over the office’s response to requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act. President Dean Flowers says that despite numerous formal requests for access to vital documents and audit reports, the unions have been met with silence and delays.

Dean Flowers, President, PSU: “The Auditor General, Ms. Dorothy Bradley, must go. We have been asking from 2010 for an audit of the Lands Department. We can’t get the audit report which was done by officers in the Audit Department. We would have been able to, been uncovering by successful governments the corruption that has been, that has been occurring in the Lands Department from King Hatchet was a Hammer. The former Prime Minister said it. Yet, this administration refused to commission an audit of the Lands Department. Refused and Dorothy Bradley refused to do it and I’m saying to all of our partners, the US, the British, all of them that I understand supported her reinstallation she needs to go, she’s doing the people of Belize a disservice and I’m calling on the Prime Minister if you are serious commission an audit of the lands department. Commission on audit of procurement in the Ministry of Health. We need an audit of procurement in the Ministry of Health. We need an audit to understand how the money is being spent in health. These are the ministries with the biggest budgets. I’ve said again. Why haven’t we had an audit in the Ministry of Works? Good things are happening in these ministries you know? It’s not all bad things but there is no accountability of the millions and millions of dollars that our children are being saddled with. And the Belizean people, the media, I challenge you. Ask, ask, ask for a country debt report. What is our current debt burden ? We know where we were in 2020. The government would have opened the books and explained to us that we’re over the cliff. We have written to the Prime Minister, please give us our debt profile, our national debt, our bilateral and multinational depth. No acknowledgement. They refuse to let us know where we are. These things are very important because this very Saudi loan is getting added on that and it will just be a matter of time that we will be right back over the cliff.”

In 2022, Flowers spoke out against the government renewing Bradley’s contract after it came to an end under the previous administration.