Fort George Rep: Census before Redistricting Proposals Makes Better Sense
Henry Charles Usher
Minister of the Public Service and Fort George Area Representative, Henry Charles Usher says that Caye Caulker residents have a right to petition the proposal to have their island subsumed by his constituency. Usher was responding to questions from the media and spoke at length on different aspects of the redistricting exercise and the proposed rezoning. Usher believes that it would have made better sense to have the census report ahead of the Redistricting Task Force conducting the re-divisioning exercise.
Henry Charles Usher, Area Representative, Fort George
“It would have been very prudent if they have had the census to be able to do their work properly. So I think it’s very unfair that time constraint that was put on them and it was put on them because there was a pending case in court. I think it was claim 55 of 2019 and to me, an arbitrary date was given – July 17th, that you had to have a report by July 17th. We had proposed, you know, when the Election and Boundaries Commission was being faced with this claim, why not wait 30 days, 60 days, until after the census? Why not set that date then? But an arbitrary date of July 17th was put forward. They were required to put forward their proposal without that, but I am sure that the proposals that the Election and Boundaries Commission finalized after the task force had done its work would have been much more informed if they had had the benefit of the census.”
