Meeting the Country’s Needs Amid Economic Hardship

Dean Barrow

The massive relief effort to assist thousands of destitute families with food supplies during the economic hardship that has befallen the country since the initial wave of COVID-19 is ongoing.  Much like the unemployment relief programme, government is working to serve the needs of all Belizeans who qualify for food assistance.  While assessments have been undertaken in rural communities in Toledo, Cayo and Orange Walk districts, the number of families that have received aid has exceeded forty-five thousand.  In respect of funds from international financial institutions, including the Inter-American Development Bank, Prime Minister Barrow says that early next week, the twenty-four million Belize dollars will be approved by the I.D.B. on June twentieth.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“Regarding the food assistance programme, these are the numbers.  Forty-six thousand, six hundred and eighty-six households have been helped and now the on-the-ground assessment has been completed in thirty-eight rural villages in Toledo, Cayo and Orange Walk.  Those people are beginning at this point to be helped.  Concerning what we are expecting from the international financial institutions, it is true that we are still in waiting mode.  It is not true though that, as the inaccurate so-called notes state, no international funding will come in for the month of June.  In fact, the first disbursement of the U.S. six point two million dollars from the I.D.B. is to arrive right after the bank’s June third signature of the amended loan contract.  The other I.D.B. line of U.S. twelve million dollars is scheduled to be approved formally on June twentieth and the processing of the World Bank’s twenty-one million U.S. dollars is also to be completed in the latter half of next month, of June.  There is U.S. fifty million dollars more to be had from the World Bank, but those particular disbursements indeed won’t happen before July.”