"Everybody kyaahn get grocery bags", or at least that's what the Minister of Human Development said today. Dolores Balderamos-Garcia lamented that, simply put, the government is broke and there are only limited resources to carry out the food assistance program. And limited resources translates into limited beneficiaries.
The Grocery Bag Program, formerly known as the Pantry Program, was put on pause back in November, shortly after the PUP took office. Minister Balderamos-Garcia said that they needed to reconfigure the program, which left a lot of dependents out in the cold.
The program restarted on December 15, but this was brief and was put on yet another indefinite pause. Now, the Minister is hoping to resume distribution next week but, as you just heard, not every previous beneficiary will be receiving this time around.
Hon Dolores Balderamos, Minister of Human Development
"What is happening is that we are in the process of vetting the applications, I do have to point out though that the money remaining up until the end of the financial year is very limited. So we have a tremendous desire, a tremendous wish on the part of the Belizean people to participate because things are hard but I don't want to give bad news but I do have to say that the number of persons that we may be able to help will be limited, you know? But government is committed with the limited resources that we have left, we are committed to seeing it through until the end of the financial year. But as you know we merged the former pantry and grocery bags, we merged it with the COVID food assistance so it is one food assistance program and that is what we will roll out, I think it will be a basket every two weeks, but again I have to caution that it will be limited."
"We're hoping by the end of next week and of course that should take us up to the third week of march so people may only be able to get a basket maybe two or three times and we will do our best to make sure that we assist the poorest of our poor people because certainly evribadi kyaahn get."
Over 45,000 persons were beneficiaries of the previous Pantry and Food Assistance programs.
