Sedi Opines on COVID-19 and the Economy

Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington

COVID-19 continues to ravage countries around the world, including our Central and North American neighbors.  With Belize heavily reliant on the economies of Mexico and the United States, any downward spiral in their financial systems can potentially cause a shock to our local economy.  It is a likelihood that is not lost on Foreign Minister Wilfred Elrington who has come forward to share his views on the pandemic and the economic crisis that lingers in its wake.  The Pickstock Area Representative highlights the fact that there is no social safety net for most Belizeans.

Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington, Area Representative, Pickstock

“When the economies of those huge countries go to sleep it really causes little countries like ours to be on dying because we depend so much on them for all the foreign exchange we need to buy all the essentials that the country needs.  We all know that the planes have stopped coming, we all know that the cruise ships have stopped coming.  We all know that people are being let go left, right and center.  Government is retrenching people, statutory corporations, people are losing their jobs, the open-vote workers are losing their jobs, people who are on contract are not being renewed.  In the private sector people are being retrenched, everybody in tourism, those who work privately and those who work publicly… It’s a nightmare and, in my view, this is only the beginning.  It’s going to get much, much worst and what is so frightening in my view is the fact that we have no social safety net.”