And among all the highlights you've been hearing about this weekend's 19th festivities, Cabinet Secretary Stuart Leslie told us today that Hopkins is definitely the place to be on Saturday. He told us more about the concert which will take place as a tribute to two former Garifuna legends.
Stuart Leslie, Cabinet Secretary
"We are very excited. It is a collaborative effort between minister Francis Fonseca from culture through NICH, the BTB, the Ministry of tourism and the office of the Prime Minister. This is going to be a one-of-a-kind tribute concert. We feel it is a good time to pay tribute to Andy Palacio and Paul Nabor. It's a segue into the whole weekend of the 19th celebrations. It's going to be on the beach we are featuring some of our young upcoming Belizeans, Parranda stars, Punta, rock artists and it's free so we invite Belizeans to come down to pumpkins, and to celebrate the beauty of the music and the dancing that will be on display. We are combining a bunch of different forms. We are combining steel pan, the SJC steel band palloti's string ensemble, along with the national choir, that you always see performing during September and of course the iconic Garifuna collective so it's going to be a special event for those who can't make it. It will be on Channel 5 and Channel 7 and Love fm. And so we invite Belizeans to come down to Hopkins, put on your chachacha and coke you are invited."
Moving The Maya Land Tenure Policy Forward
On Monday we took you to San Ignacio, where all PUP parliamentarians met to delve into the issue of the Maya Land Tenure Policy. Today the Minister of Indigenous Affairs told us the next steps forward, which includes finalizing the legislative framework.
Dolores Balderamos Garcia, Minister of Indigenous Peoples' Affairs
"It is clear that government now needs to move towards not only filing the policy before the Caribbean Court of Justice, who exercised supervisory jurisdiction but now we have to move towards the administrative and legislative framework and we are hoping that this can be done in about a year and a half because the court themselves, the judges of the CCJ themselves have said they don't want to be dealing with this beyond ten years, and we are at year 8 so if they would like to wrap it up and now have to be supervising us for another five years or whatever, we need to work assiduously and quickly to try to wrap up that legislative framework."
Sitting Down Again With Yemeri And Laguna
But while that may take some time to sort out, the Yemeri Grove and Laguna residents are growing anxious. The Minister of Indigenous Affairs explained that they will need to go back to the table with these two villages to iron out the kinks in the verbal agreement.
Dolores Balderamos Garcia, Minister of Indigenous Peoples' Affairs
"We have taken all of that onboard and basically what is happening now is we believe we will have to go back to the drawing board with the two communities, as deputy prime minister, Cordel Hyde says, we have to sit and we have to dialogue and we have to talk and hopefully we will come up with a consensus of the way forward but clearly we would have to go back to the drawing board if there were certain misunderstandings or there, when we made the official verbal agreement, everybody may not have understood what the other one was saying, I won't get into the details why it may have fallen away or not have been successful on the first try but the government is committed to sitting down continually with the various communities."
Did PUP Councillor Candidate Apply For UDP Slate?
Yesterday the mayor told us his thoughts on his mayoral competition, Dr Nelma Mortis-Jones. We also asked him about one of the candidates on his slate, Evan Thompson. In 2020, Thompson ran in the general elections under the Belize Progressive Party. And the UDP hinted on Friday that he had also applied to be a part of their slate but was rejected. So we also asked the mayor his thoughts on this.
Bernard Wagner, Mayor Belize City
"This is what occurred. I believe the party has a vetting system and you have to be able to test that vetting system and you have to have trust in the vetting system. It's a job you're applying for and so when you go to Channel 7 for your job, I believe you they did due diligence on you and I can't speak on the matter of his application to the United Democratic Party."
"I have no evidence of it. I hear similar to what you are hearing but I can't speak on it until I have seen the actual application and then that will be an issue at the party level, at the chairmanship of the party level, at the leadership level of the party."
"How did this occur? You have to look within yourself and do some serious introspection on your machinery in respect of how we go about choosing our candidates. Is this system, is this vetting system working?"
"Is this convention system working? These are the hard queations as a party look at and so I will leave it at that and await. I have no evidence so I can't speak to that."
Remembering A Teacher And A Unionist
Former Unionist, educator and active school leader, Margret Enriquez passed away suddenly on Monday in Belmopan. Reports say the 60 year old died of a heart attack.
And her former United Evergreen Primary School family, St Martin's Government School staff, and fellow unionists have been mourning her untimely passing since the news first broke. Today we spoke with Senator Elena Smith who had the pleasure of knowing and working closely with Enriquez for many decades. Here's what she shared with us today.
Elena Smith, Senator "Very sad day for us. It's untimely. Indeed Ms Margaret is one of our strong soldiers she has been one of our strong soldiers. And anybody who knows her would tell you that at every union function she's there. I cannot tell you in all my 38 years if I've ever seen her not attend a union function, and she has served us in the Belmopan branch as well as an executive officer for quite a number of years. She is always the person who is willing to you know, give advice. Give suggestions in assisting new officers when they come in, and they might need assistance in terms of, if they are you to the union and don't know what to do She's always there. But I've also found that she has this soft spoken this about her, but don't let that Fool you, because she could be very forceful when she has her ideas on her thoughts on how she feels about certain situation, so when we were discussing Union butters, she is not afraid to stand up, even if she's the only one to get up in a branch meeting to say, I don't agree I don't support that or I support this part but I don't support this. She has always been that kind of vocal person and she doesn't see it in a way that makes you feel as if though you know she is trying to cause friction, and or she is not respecting you. She has always been very respectful and her commentary in making suggestions and her recommendations and for us as a union I know that the union let me see as a past and present union member right now we will definitely miss her and what she has brought to the table but beyond the union movement, I think the education system has lost a great stalwart. She has done a lot for her school when I went. to her schools her teachers had so many good things to say about her that she is a cooperative principal, understanding, compassionate, those are the words that they use to describe her as a principal. And I know that those teachers that she left after she retired will definitely feel a huge gap and not having her around to work with her to support them."
