Boledo is Back, But What’s in It for G.O.B.?

The Briceño administration announced on Thursday evening that the Government Lotteries will resume on December first, with two master agents overseeing the vending of tickets in Belize City and other parts of the country.  Those two agents are Nando’s Wholesale Limited for Belize District and MGM Entertainment Limited for Corozal, Orange Walk, Cayo, Stann Creek and Toledo districts.  With the Government of Belize taking ownership of the lucrative games of chance, what will the proceeds be used for and who will benefit from the sales of the nightly Boledo and Sunday lottery draws?  That’s what we asked Minister of Health and Wellness Kevin Bernard earlier today.  We begin tonight’s newscast with government’s weigh-on the return of the large-scale gambling games.

Kevin Bernard

Kevin Bernard, Cabinet Minister

“I’m very pleased that we can see the return of Boledo, I mean our Belizean society that deals with Boledo… for those who engage themselves in buying Boledo, that’s something welcoming for them, but at the end of the day I’m not worried about the fact that da di people weh di spend di money, but what it’s going to benefit, who is it going to benefit.  How is it going to be trickled down to, in healthcare, in sports, education?  These are the things that will come and I am pretty sure that the team that was involved in this process did a lot of due diligence and making sure that they have done it right.  We saw what happened under the previous arrangement.  One person was getting all the monies and we could name all kinds of things, but at the end of the day, we wanted to fix that, we wanted to return the Boledo to the Government of Belize, to the people of this country whereby it will benefit them in return, in terms of services that are rendered further to them through health, education and sports.”