On the other side of that is the Minister of Human Development who received the donation. A government release says his Ministry says it will distribute the rice countrywide to over 800 governmental including clients of the Ministry of Human Development, the Ministry of Health for its hospitals, the Ministry of National Security, NEMO, Kolbe Foundation, The Inspiration Center, Helpage, Hand in Hand, Mercy Clinic, Salvation Army, the Mental Health Resource Center, and VOICE, in addition to various school feeding programs and children’s homes.
But, today, the Minister backtracked slightly from that: he said the Pantry Program and the Children’s home, for example, will not benefit from this free rice. They will continue to buy from suppliers as budgeted.
He told us the donation may not be ideal, but it is welcome:..
Hon. Anthony Martinez - Minister of Human Development
"I would have wished and I would have wished that the donation would have been cash donation to feeding program that you can give them so they can buy everything but that was the donation, the donation was rice and I'm sorry that is what it is. Nobody can't dispute that some of these products or rice never would have sell even if we never get the donation - you can't dispute that but we have to deal with what is the reality. You could look around; the easiest thing is to find fault, the hardest thing to put solution to it. Even the rice producers can't be assured that they would have sold all of the rice because some of the feeding program grows on a day to day basis where they might not feed people today because they no have a budget to prepare the meal and this supply as I understand it, is less than a week’s supply."
Jules Vasquez
"Less than a week?"
Hon. Anthony Martinez
"As I understand it, it is less than a week’s supply. I have to square on the side of the poor who cannot afford it if I am to take any side"
At the end of the day though, we must note that 250,000 pounds of rice is a drop in the bucket; Belize consumes almost two million pounds monthly.
