More Monies for Carocal Road, DigiLearn and Passports

Mark Lizarraga

Also brought before the Senate today was a supplementary budget for the current financial year.  The motion appropriated several hundreds of thousands of dollars for different projects and initiatives including more than seven hundred thousand dollars for the Caracol Road project and one million dollars for Belize Telemedia Limited for its DigiLearn project. There are also more than three hundred thousand dollars that are being spent on new passports. Senators questioned the government’s priority during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mark Lizarraga, Senator for Private Sector

“The first allocation we have here today in this schedule is for the Ministry of Finance Labor Local Government, Rural Development, Public Service Energy and Public Utilities for some one hundred and forty five thousand, eight hundred. And I wonder why? Why would we need this increase? NO explanation. And we can see here other instances, Ministry of Food and Agriculture and Immigration, three hundred and ninety five thousand dollars for materials and supplies. Again that is fine. There should have been a note. I am sorry the document that I have do not show it and I’ll be happy to share it with you the document that I was provided Minister that says nothing about passports. It gives the general heading and it says material and supplies. Ad that is fine if there is a logical explanation. I don’t know why we would need three hundred and ninety give thousand dollars worth of passport right now when nobody is travelling and if that is a priority why is it a priority. I hope it is not because we are nationalizing people like crazy again for the next elections. It is a hope. It is just a hope. We have seen it before. Mister President one can certainly understand the COVD equipment and supplies that is being requested by the Ministry of Health. One can certainly understand the Meso American Without Hunger. Then we have an expense here for DigiLearn. We own this telephone company. We are in the middle of a crisis. And I thought that Digi was giving us money, a million dollars. Now I see we are giving Digi another million dollars. Zero con zero mata zero. We own the telephone company and we have to be paying for DigiLearn.”

Louis Zabaneh

Dr. Louis Zabaneh, P.U.P. Senator

“So seven hundred and twenty one thousand three hundred and seventy dollars for Caracol when people as the Attorney General and most people on the government side have pointed out so well that we are talking about food, food, food and then they throw their hands and intonate their voice and all kind of things. Well sure food! Seven hundred and twenty one thousand three hundred and seventy dollars for food, food, food. We can do the same thing but we are talking about food. People are hungry. We don’t want to hear about Caracol right now. We want to hear how the poor people will get their money or get their food so they don’t go sleep at night with empty belly. That is what we want to hear.”