When the commission was set up, it was MANDATED to hold PUBLIC hearings. Because of COVID that can't happen - so the compromise was to stream it live on government's facebook page so that the public can see it.

But that mandate was negated when the Government press office pulled the plug today. After the abortive ending, chairman Marshalleck agreed to an interview at his law office where he said it was a wrong decision to kill the live broadcast:

"There is an obligation to keep a public record of what happened; if it's been removed from the website it really needs to be put back. It should not have been cut. I don't know who thought they had the authority to cut it, it should not have been cut. It's not a political show, it's a duly constituted commission of inquiry which is obliged by law to conduct its proceedings in public. The public nature of it was compromised by what was done. It needs to be explained by the people who know what happened. I have no clue what happened there. As I said I was sitting around the table. I was not aware that the stream had been cut until the thing finished and I was walking through the door. Just because you say something critical of the public or the prime minister doesn't mean that it should be expunged from the record by some unknown censor of the proceedings, that's not how things work. The proceedings are public Jules, there's nobody that should be sitting censoring what can and can cannot go before the public from what transpired in the proceedings."

"Is it a disrespect to all the members of the commission, or the commission in general?"

"Jules, I'm not willing to do that. It's too easy for a mistake to have been made by somebody in order to attribute the whole thing with that level of deliberate animosity."

"It's not on the facebook page, sir! That is an act! It's been expunged from history sir! You were talking it into a dead mic. They took you for a fool, Mr. Marshalleck!"

"The records are there. I'm sure it was being recorded and we can retrieve it."

"If you beg, if we beg, this is what we have been reduced to: grovelling sycophants."

"I don't know, you see it is a question of degree Jules. You're taking it too far for me. I see how you reach from A to B to C- I see it. There were disparaging statements that can be described as disparaging to the Prime Minister being mad, made somebody decided that you don't get to put that on the government's equipment and recording and press feeds and they cut it off. That to me is misguided; that's an error of judgement. I am prepared to say that."

"But, it's a disrespect Mr Marshalleck and that's why I'm asking you. Like, you are saying, you are just trying to soft shoe it. What I am saying is that this is a disrespect to your commission, to you as the Chairman, sir. You are talking into a dead mic to nobody. They took you for a fool, sir."

"The mic wasn't dead, it was being recorded."

"You hope!"

"I would expect that it was. Ahm. I hope, yes."

"We have to hope."

"We have to hope, We have to hope."

We spoke with the Prime Minister today and he apologised for the livestream being cut; he said, quote, "it should never have happened." He adds that he did not get the letter from the NTCUB which Luke Martinez read today - until after midday.

As for the Chairman's telling statement that we have to hope a copy exists - well we're still holding out hope since the media has not been provided with a copy of the full morning's proceedings.

Martinez Mines No Words Against Gov't

But this morning the media didn't know whether that copy existed.

And when we cornered Martinez at the House of Culture's gates we asked him to reiterate the words that got his speech shut down.

"What is important to note is enough, enough is enough, we the unions, the public service union requested for this commission of inquiry into the sales of government assets because the people of Belize, the poor people of Belize have been asking why do we continue to sit back and allow, government parliamentarians, people in high office to be handling our assets in such manner, after listening to the first couple, the first couple investigations and hearings a lot of Belizeans have been rubbed the wrong way and in the height of this inquiry we see that once again this government here will start to sell out the assets of the people without following the proper procedures, absolutely unacceptable, and we are telling you, when it comes to the assets of this country enough has to be enough, this doesn't have anything to do with any type of industrial action, nothing at all."

Channel 7