Natural Resources undergoes changes
If you’re one of those people who have travelled to Belmopan to fill out all the forms for getting a piece of land and were assured that everything was in order only to return the next week and have to repeat the whole process again, don’t lose heart. According to the Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Johnny Briceno, in conjunction with Preservation Area Protected Trust, the ministry announced that some major changes have been made to serve the public better.
Johnny Briceno, Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment
“Today’s seminar is a chance for us to tell the public, to show to the public that yes there is, this is a new ministry that this is a rejuvenated ministry, that were training our people and that we are ready to serve the people first and foremost.”
The changes don’t stop there. According to Briceno, corruption had taken up residence in the ministry and he fully intends to take every measure to get rid of it.
Johnny Briceno
“When we inherited the ministry, we realized that there were some serious problems from within the ministry, from within the staff…lack of attention, lack of proper service to the public, outright corruption, no care.”
“We’ve been doing a number of investigations, yes there have been quite a lot of abuses especially from a number of ministers and we have been investigating some of them. In some cases we’ve been canceling the leases and in some extreme cases we’ve even been acquiring some of the lands that were given out because we felt that it was wrongly done.”
“I can give you my assurances that as the Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, should I see any case of corruption or mishandling of our resources, our natural resources, we are going to act and we’re going to act swiftly.”
Acting swiftly is not what the ministry is known for, especially when it comes to obtaining a piece of land or transferring ownership of a lease. Briceno admits that distribution has been a problem in the past but says that will soon change.
Johnny Briceno
“Pretty soon we’ll be appointing a national land advisory policy group who will be advising the ministry. It will be comprised of people from all over the country.”
“This group would sit down and look at what we’ve been doing, look at the mistakes and see how we can continue and how we can achieve better, come up with a sustainable lands policy which unfortunately is not happening right now.”
But for now, Briceno says there is still enough land to go around.
Johnny Briceno
“I think it is the right of every Belizean to get a lot but it does not necessarily mean that government must give them that piece of land but there is enough land for everybody.”
“If there are leases that people are not using, that they are not putting to work, for instance for farmland, I think that it’s something that we need to take a look at.”
And while he’s looking into that, we’ll be looking to see if any those changes really do take place.
Janelle Chanona For News Five
The Ministry also unveiled BioFocus, a newsletter filled with articles about issues facing the ministry and general information about Belize. It is part of Briceno’s campaign to let Belizeans know what’s happening in the ministry.
