And as we mentioned, the bill that took up the most time was the supplementary appropriation bill for the financial year ending March 31st, 2021. This is basically to allocate more funds for projects that are supposed to benefit Belize - whether for infrastructure, or human development, etcetera. The PM introduced the bill but of course made it known that the primary reason for needing extra money in the budget was because of the UDP, since he claims they left the government's finances in an abysmal state. He also noted the floods of Iota and Eta and of course COVID - all leading to the "poisoned chalice" that the PUP inherited. He explained why he believes this bill should be supported.
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"This bill seeks authorization of for a further 4.5 million dollars under Cap 2 including a small grant from Taiwan and a further 3.5 million dollars in grants from the British High Commission under Cap 3. With the dismal state of our roads and bridges caused by Iota. What did the former prime call the road works, minister of infrastructure" - a road work for the future. One flood."
"We had to allocate funds for repairs and restoration including monies for streets and drains in municipalities, rehabilitation of the Hummingbird Highway, Caracol upgrade works and road safety. We also had to urgently repair our sugar roads that have been abandoned by the UDP. This all together meant a further 6.5 million dollars in recurrent Cap 2 and Cap 3 expenditures to support agriculture. Grant funding from the EU was also procured for expenditure in the total sum of approximately 2.7 million dollars. In education, loan disbursements of 4.5 million dollars under the IDB's loan for the education quality improvement program continues. In total the accumulative amounts of 559 thousand and 14 dollars in recurrent expenditures, 9 million, 113 thousand, 8 hundred and 32 dollars in domestically financed cap 2 expenditures and 17 million, 64 thousand, 407 dollars in externally funded capital 3 expenditures."
"We are cleaning up the mess and stench left behind by the past UDP administration and we are calling on everyone to vote in support of this bill."
But The Leader of the Opposition wasn't onboard, saying that this appropriation bill is retroactive and the explanation of what it was spent on just doesn't make sense to him.
Hon. Patrick Faber, Leader of the Opposition
"We have to determine that what is asking us to approve today in retrospect is basically what they overspent. He came to this house and said that they only bought, I don't remember what the exact number now and he actually specified what vehicles were bought. Now, we are seeing in the supplementary that almost half a million was spent on vehicles between his ministry of finance and the ministry of health. We see again, some spending that has happened here with very little details happening - something that the member for Cayo South use to complain profusely about, but now he seems to be presiding over. Just general description of drains in towns and villages, but no specifics. Tell us what these monies are actually being spent on. In the ministry of infrastructure and development for instance we see recurrent spending for contracts and consultancies, five hundred thousand dollars, but we don't get the specifics of what that is about. I am certain as well that there is a limit in terms of what was approved in the estimates that you can bring in terms of supplementary. If I am not mistake its about 10%, yet in terms of the contracts and consultancies, the recurrent expenses in this bill where 2 million dollars was approved in the estimates for that financial year, we see a five hundred thousand dollars supplement here - a quarter of what was approved and if you go through the other figures you will see the same thing recurring."
