New Houses Are Stronger, But Have No Utilities

Edmond Castro

Since the hurricane in early August, government has assisted with the reconstruction of approximately one hundred and fifty homes, a majority of them in the Belize District.  Those structures however, are described as starter homes since they lack basic utilities, including light and water.  NEMO Minister Edmond Castro explains why government cannot install additional amenities.

Edmond Castro, Minister of Transport & NEMO

“Basically we cannot build the houses to full completion, in terms of installation of electricity.  B.E.L. is doing that.  These persons who received their homes they just need to go and apply to B.E.L. and B.E.L. has a program in place that they will provide their weather-head and so on and try to help them.  From our point of view here, we have more houses than we had previously assessed in the initial phases, so we are looking at over two hundred, close to three hundred houses that we are trying to rebuild.  And with that said, it is impossible to do a hundred percent of everything for those houses, so we are doing our best to give them a basic structure and those people will then be in a position to help themselves so that they are at hundred percent completion.  But we are giving them, I would say, about ninety to ninety-five percent completion.  We know for sure that they are better structures.  We know for sure that they will not be able to get with and thus in the event of another storm that these houses are built and equipped to withstand some of the hurricane that we had experienced earlier.”

Reporter

“Can you give us a figure in terms of how many have been constructed and handed over and how many are in the process?”

Edmond Castro

“I think we are in the process of completing about a hundred and twenty-five or close to a hundred and fifty.  We have, I would say, another sixty or more houses to be completed countrywide.”