Senate Debates $7 Million U.S. I.D.B. Loan

The Government of Belize is seeking to borrow seven million U.S. dollars from the Inter-American Development Bank to execute a blue economy project that will promote sustainable growth. The loan motion was brought from the House of Representatives to the Senate today. No one objected to the blue economy investment, but the opposition senators were not going to let yet another loan motion pass through the Senate without saying something about it. Senator Christopher Coye also gave his input.

Antonio Heredia

Antonio Heredia, Opposition Senator
“We are here again for another loan, seven million dollars, and fourteen million Belize dollars; first of all we are to note that this loan will be disbursed over a five year period, meaning that it is one point four million per year. We are here again saying why didn’t we budget for this small amount of money. It is going to be for a five year period anyway. But yet we are coming again with a loan saddling the Belizean people with another loan.”

Christopher Coye

Christopher Coye, Government Senator

“You refer to this loan here as more loans but what had been happening in the past was a bucket full of loans up to 2020, but no growth. So that is why we couldn’t pay the bills, the past administration could not pay the bills. But in the functioning of the government we are always dealing with debts. But you have to know how to manage your debt. Clearly the past administration had no clue how to manage debt, how to manage its finances. This administration does.”

Michael Peyrefitte

Michael Peyrefitte, Lead Opposition Senator

“Senator Coye if you don’t want to hear the same thing from this side of the Senate and from the Belizean people the same thing over and over, then stop doing the same thing over and over and over. Because indeed you don’t need a financial genius to tell you, you simply look at the supplemental and the financial bills and the loans, since November 2022 and Madam President it is at one point one billion dollars. So when you talk about we come here and we criticize loans, well stop making loans.”