2 months since Hurricane Richard, But Musa not seeing relief

said musa

We’ve told you about what happened outside the House. Inside, government passed two bills and introduced six new ones. But on adjournment, several statements were made. Fort George Area Representative and Former Prime Minister, Said Musa, raised the issue of hurricane relief. Christmas Eve will mark two months since Hurricane Richard pummeled Belize.  The storm left over two hundred people homeless and many more severely affected.  Soon after the storm passed Prime Minister Dean Barrow promised that everyone who was affected will receive assistance.  According to Musa, in his constituency there were still many people who have still not seen any help from the government.  Musa also brought up the thorny issue of who has custody of the supplies.

Said Musa, Fort George Area Rep.

“People are complaining; they made their application for assistance and they have not been assisted. These are poor people we are talking about who were affected by the hurricane. Instead Mister Speaker, when we examine a little more closely what has been going on with this hurricane relief housing program. What we find happening is that the Minister of Works under the guise of the so call housing for the poor has been accumulating large quantities of construction material and having them stored at his property at mile three on the Western Highway. It is noticed Mister Speaker also, that of all the many hardware stores in Belize City, only one in particular has been getting all these bulk sales by the Ministry of Works for this program. I won’t call the name but the minister knows who that is. In fact the Belizean people know, the builders know, Ben the builder knows. They all know, they all know which is the contractor getting these contracts. And we have heard it from the Minister of Finance I believe it was, a pronouncement made that already two million dollars has been spent on that program.”

Anthony “Boots” Martinez, Minister of Works

anthony "boots" martinez

“The warehousing is located at three and three-quarter miles; it belongs to Port Loyola Housing for the poor. It is been donated to the government for F-R-E-E. let me tell you about how the process. The people come into the office, make their complain, we send somebody to investigate it, we take photographs, we get a bill of quantity of everything, we invite contractors, we look on all the project. I can tell you that every single person where their home was destroyed will get back their home.  And every single person who make a request genuinely where their home had been destroyed and it is verified by the office, get their money so that they can procure rental until the project can do their house. The process starts like this Mister member for Fort George. The complaint is being made, investigate it; also too, there are instances, once it is hurricane related damages that is what the office deals with. We do take all applications cause when the man come and ih seh ih house has been damage by hurricane, we still send somebody to tek, but we still need to sieve through the process.”