Cabinet considers budget; adopts drug strategy

Cabinet Ministers have begun to work out the details of the budget for fiscal year 2000 to 2001. Discussions will continue at a special meeting on Thursday and the Prime Minister Said Musa will give the budget speech to the nation at a House of Representatives meeting on March 7th. The budget debate in the house will be scheduled for a later date. In this week’s Cabinet meeting, the first National Anti-Drug Strategy was approved. The document was prepared by the National Drug Advisory Council and presented to Minister of National Security Jorge Espat earlier this month. It will cost an estimated forty-four million dollars to implement all the programs recommended by the council. Government spends thirteen million dollars every year on rehabilitation, treatment and education through a portion of its security budget for eradication and interdiction of illegal drugs. They expect to attract the additional thirty-one million dollars needed over the next five years from outside sources. The programme is designed to shift the anti-drug strategy away from military style enforcement to community empowerment programmes and assisting the most vulnerable through education and treatment programmes. Cabinet has also appointed a Health Sector Reform Steering Committee. The Committee will be chaired by Health Minister Jose Coye and include representatives from the Ministries of Finance, Public Service and Health, the Belize Medical and Dental Association, the Director of Health Services and the General Manager of the Social Security Board. The committee has been given the responsibility of formulating policy and monitoring the targets of the health reform programme. Technical support will be provided by the Ministry of Health and private consultants. Also covered in the meeting was Belize’s membership in the International Criminal Court. The Government agreed that Belize will join and ratify the statute, which was adopted by other countries in Rome in 1998. The court’s jurisdiction is limited to serious crimes against the international community as a whole such as genocide, war crimes or crimes of international aggression. The Caribbean Development Bank and the Government of Belize has provided more than one million dollars for new projects under the CDB’s Basic Needs Trust Fund. It will go towards rudimentary water systems in several rural communities and the expansion and retrofitting of schools in other areas. Computers and woodworking tools will be provided to several trade schools.