And back in the House Meeting, the parliamentarians debated the loan motion for US 77 million dollars that will go towards building a solar plant. As we told you before, the PM recently signed with the Saudi Fund for Development to secure this loan.
But there are many questions, and the motion didn't go over too well with the opposition. Shyne Barrow stood to point out that, yet again, the Briceno Government is bringing another loan motion to the House.
Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
"At this rate the government is borrowing million dollars a day, 2 million dollars a day. About 250 million dollars more than what the previous Barrow administration was borrowing and I have to remind the Belizean people at every turn. This is a government that said they would stop the borrowing, that they would grow the economy so robustly that would not need to borrow."
"I know many of you are obsessed with the former prime minister, but I have to start to call you prime minister borrow, not Barrow, but borrow, because all you do is borrow. As I've said and maybe is not the most eloquent description, but it's a sprang head government. All they do is borrow, borrow and borrow and then what provokes the resentment is that the prime minister said that he spoke to the Saudis and expressed to them the urgency of this matter and they fast-tracked it. What about the urgency of our magistrates and our judicial officers that are underpaid? Why isn't there a fast track to get monies to strengthen our judiciary? So again, there is a constant mis-prioritization by this government from its inception. This is a government that spends over 200 million dollars in one budget on infrastructure that they said we could not eat. That was their cry, infrastructure is nowhere in their manifesto Plan Belize. Yet they are spending over 200 million dollars on infrastructure and they have cut the member from Caribbean Shores, they have cut his budget and we have a state of emergency, because people are killing people left and right."
And after he spoke, the area rep for Freetown, Francis Fonseca stood up in support of the motion. According to him, Barrow becomes a broken record every time the "L" word is mentioned - even if it's for a good cause.
Francis Fonseca, Freetown Division
"The leader of the opposition at his core he is an entertainer and so I know he likes to engage in theatrics and every time we present a loan motion he sings the same, he rap the same tune about the government borrowing excessively with absolutely no regard for the facts or the truth."
"In terms of the solar energy project this particular loan, as I said I'm very proud to support, rise and support this motion. In my view its a long overdue motion and people will ask, because its not obviously a new subject matter and it's a very legitimate question why now. This thing has been discussed for years and years and years. BEL have had it as a part of its plan, its long-term planning development as a major component, but you talk to anybody from BEL and people who are around the energy sector and they will tell you that what has really blocked any movement on this whole solar energy initiative which is critically important. It's just common sense. We're here in Belize where we complain about the heat and the sun all the time. Why not put the sun's energy to work for us, solar energy? It makes common sense, but what blocked it over the past 10 years is just hustling; UDP hustling and corruption. They could not figure out a way, they formed - we'll have to get to the bottom of this and reveal some of these things to the Belizean people. They formed all kinds of company, the elite few around the government, the connected ones, you know who they are. They were involved in every public utility. They formed companies to get involved in the solar energy sector and when they couldn't figure out a way for the thing to hustle through these projects, they just said well, we won't do anything. That's it, typical UDP fashion."
"In keeping with Belize's strong unwavering commitment under this PUP government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Briceno, to sustainable development to the environment, to a green economy and of course a blue economy as well. So in keeping with that commitment this is exactly what we need to be doing."
