At this hour, the Special Sitting of the House of Representatives is still ongoing, though the budget debate portion is over. Kicking off the final leg was a returning Patrick Faber, who had missed the first two days of debate. And the undermanned but not necessarily outmatched opposition needed the senior parliamentarian's input. His speech lasted about one hour and forty minutes, about as long as the Leader of the Opposition.
And he shared the same sentiments as his party leader, that PM Briceno's budget is made up of swell sounding figures that do not represent the reality on the ground.
Patrick Faber, Area Rep, Collet
"I go back to this line, Madam Speaker, 95% of those who seek employment are working so in other words, if you're not out there actively, and the situation is that some people get very frustrated, after you try and try and try, you apply for a job over and over and over again, so by their calculations, these people aren't unemployed anymore if the argument is that there is a growing number of persons who don't have jobs but are not looking for work, then Madam Speaker, we have a different kind of problem and this country may be further up the proverbial creek, and we don't want to admit it."
"The Prime Minister announced that 68,000 persons have escaped poverty, which is an extraordinary achievement for our nation. If this is true, Madam Speaker, and apparently the SIB has claimed the same, I believe that's your source, if I'm not mistaken, Prime Minister, they have said again that poverty has miraculously gone down, from 52% when the UDP was in power, to 39.5% just miraculously and this is why I caution from the start of my presentation what you all present in terms of the numbers on paper is a pretty picture but the reality out there is different."
"The Prime Minister claimed in his budget presentation that there are primarily responsible for this whopping development in getting out of poverty. He claims the first thing is land. Then he also makes the claim about education and Housing. Well, the truth is, Madam Speaker, that nothing really new is happening in education, that's a fact. I would argue that less is happening now than what was happening under the UDP administration. If we look at the other element he is talking about, housing, he confessed in his presentation that they have only materialized 260 houses of the promised of plan Belize for, what was it, 10,000 houses. And then they paint a pretty picture of what is to come, I heard the Deputy Prime Minister and the member for Lake I talk about what is to come in terms of land. Well, Madam Speaker, this promise of land is still lurking in the halls of the "yet to come.""
"So how, pray tell, tell me how 68,000 people just miraculously got up out of poverty? Is it not a clear side that things that the government side boasts are just fictitious, made up. They accuse this side of making up things, where are those 68,000 people?"
Faber also zeroed in on the Ministry of Education, where he was once the minister. He called out the current projects, including the free education pilot, saying that the current plans are just a copy and paste of the UDP's strategy.
Patrick Faber, Area Rep, Collet
"This whole program of education, bogus, everything they- listen, in 2019, the Ministry developed a strategic plan for five years. When this set get in, they claim the strategic plan isn't good. So in 2020, they create their own strategic plan. You know what they did? Copy everything that was in the 2019 strategic plan off the UDP administration. Everything they copied, in fact, let me correct that, it's not everything they copied because they, as I said in previous point I was making, less is happening now in the Ministry of Education than what was happening. I watch how they are pontificating about free Southside, I listen to the member from Toledo West talking about education down south. Let me tell you what the UDP administration did for education down south and across this country because what you are putting forward now is pale, it's a joke."
"They boast now about the south, when the UDP was in power, every child at Julian Cho Technical High School received their school fees paid, the school fees is only $300, Madam Speaker. The other school, Corazon Technical, was created by the United Democratic Party."
"Then you talk about Belize City Southside, you should be ashamed. That initiative was always there. It was in fact the Ministry of Education under the UDP that saved those government schools on the Southside. And from the time we had to do that rescue mission, those secondary schools received subventions from the government over and beyond what they needed to so that students who said I need to go, Gwen Liz, Sadie Vernon, Maud Williams, Excelsior High School, now you will come, all of these school were undersubscribed, and now you come like now we're doing the Southside a big favor, please. That was long ago there."
