Minister of Tourism to Provide Financial Breakdown of BIMFF Investment

The United Democratic Party is calling for a full accounting of every dollar that was used to finance the Belize International Music and Food Festival this past weekend. A release from the U.D.P. says, “sadly, of the one million Belizean taxpayers money spent, the small amount of Belizean artists that were hired amounted to less than five percent of the budget.” The release refers to the investment as ‘wasteful’, adding “we believe the proceeds from the concert should go towards national celebrations events like Queen of the Bay, Battle of St. George’s Caye Day, Carnival, Independence Day and Garifuna Settlement Day.”  Well, according to this week’s Cabinet brief, Anthony Mahler, the Minister of Tourism and Diaspora Relations, was, “congratulated by his Cabinet colleagues for hosting a successful festival.”  When reporters caught up with Francis Fonseca, the Minister of Education, today in Belize City, he was asked about Minister Mahler’s report to Cabinet on the event. Here is how he responded.

Francis Fonseca

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Culture

“Cabinet was literally the day after the festival had ended. The festival ended on Sunday, or Monday was a holiday and Cabinet was on Tuesday. So, it was a preliminary report and based on that preliminary report, we are satisfied that BTB met its objectives. The minister has promised a more comprehensive report dealing with the finances of the festival, which he has said e will share publicly as well. So, we have not received that as yet. But, we are satisfied that the principal objectives of the festival were met. It was an excellent event. I myself attended on one night, the Saturday night. I wasn’t able, because of my commitments with the Emancipation Day, to attend on Sunday night. But, on Saturday I thought it was an amazing show. I thought both local performers and the international performers did an excellent job. We had I think close to five thousand people in attendance, so I think it did a lot to raise the profile, the entertainment profile of Belize.”