Another politically connected supplier is now at the center of the Ministry of Defense procurement scandal, and the numbers are hard to ignore. Meat Master, a company owned by a close relative of C.E.O. Francis Usher’s wife, received more than four hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars over a two-month period after securing two payments of a ministry contract. But the controversy is not only about family connection. It is also about the way the payments were broken up. According to the records, fifty-four invoices were submitted, each under ten thousand dollars. On one day alone, more than three hundred thousand dollars was paid out through thirty-five separate invoices. While the ministry insists the process was above board, the structure of those payments is prompting a bigger question: were procurement safeguards being respected, or carefully avoided?
Paul Lopez, Reporting
Another Orange Walk supplier is now being added to the growing list of Ministry of Defense contractors whose invoices are raising questions. Meat Master submitted dozens of invoices for payment, each coming in below the ten-thousand-dollar mark.
Francis Usher
Francis Usher, Chief Executive Officer, Ministry of Defense
“Meat Master is a meat company out of Orange Walk that happens to be owned by the cousin of my wife.”
That’s right, the proprietor is a relative of C.E.O. Francis Usher’s wife. And Meat Master is not an isolated case. Several of the suppliers we previously reported on were either relatives of, or closely connected to, Ministers Oscar Mira, Florencio Marin Junior, and Ramon “Monchi” Cervantes.
Francis Usher
“I understand the point you are making, but asking me how I come to terms with it. I come to terms with it knowing that the process was followed to the letter of the law.”
$435,455.73 in Ministry of Defense payments were made to Meat Master across April and May of 2026. A total of fifty-four invoices, each one below ten thousand dollars. CEO Usher’s explanation is that vendors are talking amongst themselves and they appear to have figured out how to get paid by government faster than most.
Francis Usher
“I think vendors know that the process of them receiving payments happens to be quicker if it is below a certain threshold. So they themselves submit it that way, whether it is broken down by item or delivery.”
But it can be viewed no other way than sidestepping the government’s payment process by ensuring invoices remain just below that ten-thousand-dollar threshold. How else can the three-hundred-and-four-thousand-dollar payment that the Ministry of Defense made to Meat Master on May 11th, 2026 be explained? Such a large sum would require authorization beyond the ministry’s accounting department, unless that large sum is broken down into thirty-five invoices just below the ten-thousand-dollar threshold.
Paul Lopez
“How do you justify paying a hundred thousand dollars to a single company in a single day, from out of the ministry’s coffers under the ministry’s authority?”
Francis Usher
“Well you justify it by ensuring the products were received and that they were certified as correct. In this case, the invoices would not have been paid, if the necessary requirements were not met, in terms of all the steps of the process.”
Paul Lopez
“But, ordinarily, over three hundred thousand dollars, would have to go through a completely different process, whether it is the treasury department, or above that, let’s say the ministry of finance. In this case that was not done, yet this company received over three hundred thousand dollars.”
Francis Usher
“I think that all of the oversight of the treasury and the contractor general, those are for the contracts entered for individual or specific items. Various items were supplied by one company, but various different items. They were certified as received. They met all the requirements, went through the tendering process and when that batch got in, they were paid as quickly as we could process them, as we do with everybody else.”
Paul Lopez
“Which is a single day, over three hundred dollars. You don’t find nothing questionable about that?”
Francis Usher
“Having or knowing we go through the entire process and that there is accountability and transparency, no.”
Usher explains that Meat Master is still doing business with the ministry because supplier contracts are usually valid for a year. Reporting for News Five, I am Paul Lopez.
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