To Extend or Not to Extend S.O.E. for Sixty Days
John Briceño
Opposition Leader John Briceño also sits on the National Oversight Committee as co-chair. While he has been abreast of government’s need to reopen the economy as quickly as possible, the question of whether a sixty-day extension is in itself excessive has also arisen. Aside from openly debating the need for a two-month addition, Briceño also outlined necessary steps that should be taken by government to ensure that the war against COVID-19 is successful.
John Briceño, Leader of the Opposition
“The question we must now ask is whether or not to extend the state of emergency and if yes, for how long. After much discussion and deliberation among our party‘s legal, medical and economic advisors, our parliamentary caucus has approved our support for an extension to the national state of emergency for thirty days, starting May 1st, 2020. And I‘ll explain why Madam Speaker. This is our recommendation because our public health authorities, people with specialization in public health, epidemiology, clinical health and hospital management believe that keeping people at home for thirty more days represents our best means of further containing the coronavirus at this time. Now this does not mean that if at the end of this thirty days that we may need to extend, we advise that we need to extend the state of emergency that we would not support it. We just believe that if thirty days, Madam Speaker, should be enough at this time. Now this is no time for complacency or carelessness or the kind of irresponsible actions that could render meaningless all the progress that we have thus far achieved, and need I say with much sacrifice from everyone. As we support a thirty day renewal of the state of emergency we call on the government and yes, the National Oversight Committee which I co-chair to make full and good use of this time to do the following: One: significantly increase testing for COVID-19 in every district across the country in the cities, the towns the villages. We should hire hundreds of people, give them short training courses and set them out in our towns and our cities, in our communities, in our villages to hunt down this virus.”
