Turning back to Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, the Government Ministers also discussed the latest in the successful push from the Churches to trigger a referendum on marijuana legalization in Belize, using the Referendum Act.
From today's briefing, the government said, "Of the 20,112 petitions submitted, 18,891 or 10.07 percent of the total number of registered electors were accepted, thus triggering a referendum. Cabinet is satisfied that the democratic process was followed and welcomes the opportunity to hear from the electorate on this issue."
When the topic came up today, Ambassador Leslie told us that by the government's estimate, the marijuana referendum will cost somewhere between 2 and 5 million dollars:
Ambassador Stuart Leslie - Cabinet Secretary
"At Cabinet, Minister Usher presenting presented the results that the chief elections officer did of the vetting of all the signatures for the petition to trigger a referendum. And he reported to Cabinet Tuesday that the churches had met the 10% threshold. And so, it is for the Governor-General to sign the writ of a referendum and the Governor-General has 30 days from receipt of the petition verification from the Chief Elections Officer. And then, from there we have another 30 days for the government to trigger the referendum. So, we're talking about a 60-day process. But right now the chief elections officer has verified, yes, 10% of the population, which is enough to trigger a referendum. And so, forward we go into the process as far as you are aware."
Reporter
"Has there been any discussion among Cabinet colleagues or the ministries of the respective ministries to look at a budget for this particular exercise?"
Ambassador Stuart Leslie
"Yes, in fact, tomorrow, a supplementary will be going up in Parliament and Prime Minister will speak, of course, more to that. But I think the Budget will include the cost of the referendum. I think it's going to be somewhere between 2 and 5 million dollars, with the cost of the referendum, and the cost of making sure that there's a public awareness campaign, and so on in terms of how to vote, what to do and so on. So that is heading up to the Parliament tomorrow."
