Prime Minister John Briceño Responds to Criticisms and Explains How the Investments Will Be Made

Prime Minister John Briceño

Prime Minister John Briceño responded to Faber’s criticism by explaining how the government invested in projects such as National Health Insurance across the country, water systems, and health clinics.  The Prime Minister also explained how the current government reformed primary education in less than a year after they took office.

Prime Minister John Briceño

“You want to know how we were able to drastically reduce poverty, because we used that money that you all were too incompetent to spend. And we put them in water systems and the south, to help improve conditions in our schools, to build clinics, expand N.H.I. N.H.I in Corozal was only for Corozal Bay. And the same money that they were spending in Corozal Bay, we are giving even more services to the entire district of Corozal. And this year with this new budget with the, is it seven or eight million – seven million that we are going to spend in the Orange Walk district and we’re going to cover everybody in the Orange Walk District under N.H.I. We did not support the building of the Caracol Road. Remember, Member from Cayo Northeast, when you said it’s a road to nowhere? That’s how you described it because it’s not that this would not be important.It’s simply that we believe that there were other priorities in other areas that we may need to build. Now, we could have come in to government and say, you know what, we’re going to stop it. And some members in Cabinet were saying you know, we need to stop it. But we – three point five million per mile – that is what was spent. But we are a responsible government and we decided that we just can’t throw away that money. When we look at the infrastructure of schools, we found out the infrastructure and many of the schools were really in a bad condition. As Minister of Education, the member from Collet had a loaf of fifty-six million dollars, approved by the C.D.B and what we have to show for this fifty-six million dollars?”