P.U.P. Deputy Says Cost of B.T.L. Won’t Benefit Belizeans

Julius Espat

The assertion by government that payment of at least the first two hundred million due in days will be pretty much a piece of cake is no consolation to P.U.P. Deputy Leader Julius Espat – far from it.

Julius Espat, P.U.P. Deputy Leader, West

“I was doing some calculations this morning and if the government was a government that believed in good governance and if this was a government that believed in the people of Belize, we could have had free education for six and a half years. We could have had the NHI rolled out for six and a half years so no Belizean citizen would have had to pay for primary school, high school…even sixth form. No Belizean would have had to pay for hospital bills. We could have had functioning hospitals; we could have more classrooms; we could have had so many things that would have added to a better quality of life for our Belizeans. We could have even reduced our debt if we were even thinking of being a good government. And in addition to that, since they have nationalized the company, we have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in loss foreign direct investment and in a loss of local investors. If you add all of that together, you are talking over a billion dollars that this has cost the country of Belize and the people of Belize.”