P.M. offers thanks, says nation can cope with disasters

All clear. For Belizeans they may be the two most beautiful words in the English language. The fast moving Felix, which grew from Tropical Storm to category five hurricane in the blink of an eye on Monday, had its one hundred and sixty mile per hour winds pointed squarely at Belize, but it never did make its expected northwest turn and instead this morning unleashed its fury on Nicaragua and Honduras. At news time the much weakened tropical system was dumping torrential rain on our Central American neighbours and while a tropical storm watch remains in effect for the deep south of Belize, those kind of rains—if they do come—are not a particularly unusual event for the Toledo District.

Today Prime Minister Said Musa made a statement announcing the all clear as well as an end to the nationwide State of Emergency. He made it a point to thank those emergency preparedness personnel who have worked so hard in recent days as well as the public for its patience in taking the necessary precautions. Early this afternoon News Five’s Marion Ali spoke to the Prime Minister in his Belmopan office. He conceded that had Dean or Felix hit Belize with full force the result would have been devastating.

Prime Minister Said Musa
“It could have been catastrophic. Either one of these hurricanes if they had come with a category five intensity and a direct hit on say Belize City, or indeed any other part of our country, it would have caused untold damage and possible loss of life. So we consider ourselves very lucky and very grateful for all our blessings.”

Marion Ali
“What have we learned from these exercises?”

Prime Minister Said Musa
We have learnt that we live in a hurricane zone and that every year we have to face this possibility of hurricanes. Last year we were lucky. I think most of the hurricanes—if not all—went north. But this year from all the advice we’ve been getting, it should be a very active year, and it has been so far, as early as August. And what we have to learn, we have to learn to live with this threat hanging over us. As indeed those of us who were around for the time of Hurricane Hattie—you’re too young for that Marion—will realize that hurricane is serious business. It’s a real disastrous situation and our people have to understand, I believe they do now, that we always have to be prepared.”

Marion Ali
“Have the responses been adequate over the last two weeks?”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“I am satisfied that on a whole NEMO and certainly the Met office have been doing an extremely good job. I believe there is room for improvement in terms of the response from our public service, the public officers, in terms of manning the shelters. There is clearly a need for us to work out a far better protocol because we have recognized that people obviously have to take care of their families first and therefore we need to re-examine this whole issue of who are the shelter wardens and all this thing. I must say the security forces, the police and the B.D.F. have been doing an extremely good job and I must commend them very highly.”

“The Ministry of Human Development, under Ms. Anita Zetina, the C.E.O., again has been very responsive, doing a good job in terms of getting, organising, mobilising the food supply and so forth.”

But organising and mobilizing—even for a near miss—is not without a cost. We asked the P.M.: how much?

Prime Minister Said Musa
“Well it costs quite a lot of money, no doubt about it. I mean, to give you an idea, just in terms of the logistics in mobilising, that costs money. In terms of providing the food supplies for people, as we have been doing under Hurricane Dean, that costs a lot of money also. Already It’s in excess of $2 million, just logistics and food supply, not to mention the tremendous other expense we’ll have to go through with assisting people with shelter and also with grants, as we’ve been doing. Those things take up a lot.”

Marion Ali
“The losses caused by Dean put us to around $200 million Belize dollars, how are we gonna cope with recovering from that?”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“There is no doubt that it would be a strain on our finances, but I want to disabuse people of this growing myth that somehow the government is broke and that therefore things will begin to crumble. No such thing. Fortunately because of the debt restructuring that took place not so long ago, and also because of the fact that the government continues to function, the Customs Department continues to function, the business tax will still come in and the revenue base will hopefully remain virtually in tact, the oil industry and other sectors, the fact of the matter is it will be a strain on our finances but we are not broke. We will be able to manage, we will be able to cope and we will get through this thing together, people and government. There’s no question that Belize will go into a depression, an economic crisis or anything of the sort. Having said all that, obviously we will have to examine whether or not there’s need for further borrowings in order to cope with the immediate short-term situation. It would certainly have the effect of slowing down some of the projects that were on stream to come into effect, that is certainly a fact, yes.”

Marion Ali
“We’ve been spared over the past two weeks from two catastrophic storms of category five no less. Had we been directly hit, as an independent nation are we able to recover on our own or will we be reliant on international aid?”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“The truth is that we live in an interdependent world. We live in fact in a globalised world and no more so in the case of disasters. And even in the disaster that is taking place as we speak in terms of climate change, that is a disaster that is ongoing, that is affecting the entire world, Belize not excepted. We cannot just depend on ourselves. We have to do for ourselves, we have to become far more self-reliant, but we do need assistance from our friends from abroad and we will continue to do so. As an independent country there is no doubt that Belize has been able to address its own needs and concerns. The days of when we were getting aid, grants in aid, remember those days, maybe you won’t because of your age; but certainly prior to independence Belize was dependent on grant aid. That no longer exists. The big nations of this world, none of them are just dishing out money like in the old days of the 60’s. We have to depend on ourselves and on our own resources, developing our resources, but we do have of course, the facility under the International Financial Institutions to borrow money and hopefully those loans will come in at concessionary rates, certainly in terms of disaster recovery programmes.”