And another bill that was introduced into the House was the Millennium Challenge Account-Belize Authority Amendment. This seeks to ratify the MCC and the Program Implementation Agreement entered into by the USA and Belize.
It's only an introduction so there was no debate, and we asked the PM if he expects there will be arguments from the Opposition side when that time comes:
Reporter:
"Do you expect friction from the Opposition when it goes to second reading?"
Hon. John Briceno:
"No, I do not expect friction from the Opposition. The people from the US Embassy, I've asked them to please speak to them and show them everything, it's something that's good for Belize, so no, I do not see that. The main changes is that they want to remove some funds from-President Trump is putting a lot of interest in energy and of course oil and so forth, and so that was his directive, not to Belize, but in general. So with the MCC, when they look at Belize, then they decide to move some funds that we were going to spend in education and we're going to spend it now in energy. In a way it is timely for us because as I explained, the submarine cable should have been changed by 2019 under the previous government, but they never acted, and so we have been trying to work on it after we got into Government. We had a number of issues because of the after-COVID-19, the supply chains were disrupted. Now that it's settling down, we have another war there in Iraq, but it has to be done. So the idea is that the funding is about 30-plus million dollars, it's going to be, from the energy component, it's going to be used to help to pay for a new submarine cable to be able to keep up with the demand of the island of Ambergris Caye."
