Both parties say they have done the right thing
That exchange between the Deputy Minister and the Leader of the Opposition was inside the House. The finger pointing was over land sales within reserves, on cayes, on the mainland, and of course in a lagoon. But what about the majority of Belizeans who are unable to get a single lot? Vega and Briceño had their own take after the House meeting.
John Briceño, Leader of the Opposition
“A thousand acres of land have been given to two Belizeans and apart from the fact that they are giving these huge block of land to two persons, what is even more scandalous the survey, the way it was done is that they went with all the river frontage; over seven thousand feet of river frontage. That means that if other people want to do any kind of agriculture work or even tourism, they have no access to the water. The policy of the Ministry of Natural Resources has always been that to every foot that you get, you go three feet to the back and that was not done. In the Mountain Pine Ridge area, what we are saying is that some of these lands are being given out it seems that have been given out in the reserve. But most importantly is that they are giving out these large plots of lands to some political cronies. We already have the survey plans for three one hundred acre parcels and they are contiguous one after the other and we are told that this is going to be sold off to a certain individual—we don’t have the name as yet—but also that there’s another area that is in that same area right next to it that’s being surveyed into ten one hundred acre blocks.”
Elvin Penner, Minister of Youth and Sports
“Land being given out to two Mennonites in Mr. Hutchinson area. Mr. Hutchinson, yes, I did send these people him for recommendations, he did recommend it and it went to Cabinet and Cabinet decided for these individuals to get the land. Now I want to make it absolutely clear that this land is in the name of two individuals, but it is for an entire community. It is for forty to fifty families of the Barton Creek Community that have no more land to plant in their village and they are now looking for farm land elsewhere and we couldn’t but support it because this is for development. They will build miles and miles of roads from the Humming Bird to their present land, opening up a whole lot of agricultural land for Belizean people and the way they surveyed it is specifically because there is a creek and there is a mountain range. They have no use for the mountain range, they can’t cross the creek; so the only way they could have surveyed that amount of land was between the mountain range and the creek which allowed it to be such a narrow piece of land.”
John Briceño
“It was the minister that said in the last House meeting that it was as easy as reading a dictionary when you’re approving these lands but he has been approving lands in these reserves. In the UNESCO World Heritage Site, South Water Caye, he issued a Caye to two individuals smack in the middle of that world heritage site. So here he is coming making allegations when he is not looking at exactly what he is doing.”
Jose Sanchez
“The opposition leader is saying you guys are giving land to friends and cronies and you reminded him that they did the same. To the common man on the street, P.U.P. giving out, U.D.P. giving out, they are saying when can they get land?”
Gaspar Vega, Minister of Natural Resources
“I did not say that they did the same, cause I am convinced we are not doing what they did, so I want to correct that. I am saying is that we are going to do what we believe is proper to discuss big parcels of land is one at the Cabinet level. It is common knowledge that the minister only has authority to give up to ten acres of land so everything else ahs to be discussed among our colleagues at the Cabinet.”
John Briceño
“We’re starting to get word information of land being given out all the country, way beyond the ten acres policy that the prime minister is talking about. Is the prime minister aware that all this land is being given out? Is the Cabinet aware that all this land is being given out? I have spoken to several of the ministers of Cabinet and they are saying that they do not know.”
Jose Sanchez
“But for the common people on the street are saying P.U.P. gave away large tracts of land, U.D.P. gave large tracts of land in and out of reserves, does anyone care about the poor people in the end?”
John Briceño
“When you look at our record, we issued thousands and thousands of lands to Belizean people, to poor people. The people in Collet division that got over a hundred plus lots in the Collet division in our time, those are poor people that were squatting there. When you go to the Toledo district and you go to the different villages in that area where these people are now complaining that their access to pay their leases is a complete lock down, those are poor people that got land from the Belizean people.”
