P.M. defends handling of hurricane relief
It’s the end of a long week for the people of northern Belize and those who are working to return their lives to what could pass for normalcy. With relief efforts appearing to gain their footing, today News Five’s Ann-Marie Williams spoke to Prime Minister Said Musa.
Prime Minister Said Musa
“Now It’s the distribution, that is the area in which we have to improve and to ensure that the people get it on time. And in a situation like this, you will always have people clamouring for help and they’ll want the help now and that is understandable. And I want to assure the Belizean people, especially the victims of this hurricane, that our government, together with NEMO and all the voluntary organisations, the Red Cross and everybody else, is doing everything possible to provide that relief in an effective, real time basis.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“What do you say to people who are without food and have to line up for some rations three days after the hurricane cleared up?”
Prime Minister Said Musa
“Well, you have to organise. People do have to line up.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“Yes but, why does the relief really take so long to reach them?”
Prime Minister Said Musa
“It has maybe in Corozal Town. We had a problem but when we stopped to think of the— that NEMO has had to concentrate on villages spread across the Corozal District, getting supplies to as far as Chunox, as far as north as Patchakan, Xaibe and all these areas, as far south as—up to the Corozal District—as San Victor, Santa Clara, Libertad. It’s spread right across, Calcutta, San Antonio, Paraiso, Chan Chen, all of them. They are getting the supplies out. I think it is easy for us to engage in nitpicking and say ‘well why do people have to wait so long’. And what happened, I understand, yesterday was some serious glitch at the Corozal Civic Centre. We need to investigate that some more and find exactly how that came about.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“Is it a shortage of man power?”
Prime Minister Said Musa
“In a sense, in a sense it may be. I don’t want to prejudge the issue, like I said, I need to get some more detailed reports on exactly what happened. I suspect that there’s been a lot of miscommunication between the local authority, the town council and the NEMO, who are really in charge. And the town council needs to understand that they need to work along with NEMO, not over NEMO.”
“The shelters are far stronger than any category one or category two hurricanes. There are some of them, we can’t do a sweeping statement and say all of them are up to a category four type of hurricane, but that is the objective, to move towards even to deal with a category five type of storm. But we’re not there yet, and we have to be very honest and straight forward about that, but the shelters can withstand, I am told, of course, I have to rely on what the engineers say. I don’t know much of anything about structures of buildings.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“We don’t have enough shelters; we have like twelve strong, good ones. That’s what they say.”
Prime Minister Said Musa
“I am told that there are a few shelters that do need to be upgraded. I’ve heard the criticism coming from the city council. We are looking into that and we will be dealing with that situation.”
As for the more immediate needs of Norteños…
Prime Minister Said Musa
“We are implementing this grant program of twelve hundred dollars for the most affected ones, poor people in need. In other words, you can’t expect people, government or any organisation, NEMO, just to provide supplies when we have supplies available in various business establishments. But we do put money in their hands for them to be able to go and purchase. Those most in need, we are providing loans, for those who want to upgrade their facilities, their homes.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“But they say that these loans need collateral.”
Prime Minister Said Musa
“But this is why a misinformation has been put out, perhaps even by your own T.V. station. It is no collateral, not with collateral.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“Because if these people had collateral then they wouldn’t be begging for things.”
Prime Minister Said Musa
“Well exactly, in fact the truth is, the statement clearly said—the official statement—that it’s a loan of up to eight thousand dollars initially, with no collateral. You don’t have to put up any kind of property or anything else for that matter. It’s very important that we carry out this work methodically to ensure that we provide the service to the people most in need, whether blue or red or yellow or any other colour, any other support that they may give to any other political party. Poor people noh the ask—we’re not, certainly not asking them ‘are you P.U.P.?’, in order to get help. That would be stupid, on anybody’s part! We need to make sure that the organisation, that we work together as a people, man. This is not the time for electioneering, and I think that is part of the problem that we are faced with right now.”
Acting on the advice of the Prime Minister, the governor general today declared a formal state of emergency in the Corozal District. According to government, it will allow relief to be better administered.
