Ramon “Monchi” Cervantes to Ministry of Sustainable Development, PM Comments

Prime Minister John Briceño

The latest Cabinet reshuffle was announced last Friday. Minister of State Ramon “Monchi” Cervantes was removed from the Ministry of Immigration and placed in the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management, alongside Minister Orlando Habet. So, what is the Prime Minister’s rationale behind the shift? That’s what we asked him when we caught up with him today.

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Whenever anybody makes, a Prime Minister makes a change, it doesn’t have to be because of any wrongdoing. It is simply because, as Prime Minister I have to constantly be looking at the performance of different ministries and looking at where I can do a better fit. Honorable “Monchi” Cervantes is one of the most capable persons we have, super intelligent. Many people don’t know this but he sat done for the CPA, the Certified Public Accountant Exam and he passed it in one sitting. Many people have to take it four or five times before they finally passed. He did it in one sitting. I put him with Minister Courtenay because I felt that since he is a newly elevated representative that he can learn a lot from Minister Courtenay. He and Minister Courtenay worked very closely together. But, looking around we are seeing that the issue of climate change has become a burning topic worldwide and it requires a lot of the attention of Minister “Landy” Habet. Minister Habet has so much to do with these issue both locally and internationally and he has a fairly big ministry, so we felt it was best to move “Muncie”, one of our capable ministers of state and put him to work along with Landy. We have the issue of NEMO, we have to look at the total reorganization, restructuring of NEMO. At this last hurricane, thankfully it was only a category one and it only hit one small area of the country we saw a lot of deficiencies. We are seeing also that on the Solid Waste Management Authority, that it needs more closer attention and the same thing with the Fire Service. Because Minister Habet is wholly concentrated on these issues, but the way because of his efforts and the efforts of the CEO, we are potentially raising tens of millions of free money for Belize under climate change. We felt that then it best to have “Monchi” to go in there and assist Minister Habet.”