Fifty two families in the Corozal and Orange Walk Districts received
keys to their homes today. They were the families whose homes and lives had
been wiped out by Hurricane Dean in 2007. Rudolph Gentle who is a resident of
Trial Farm and crippled -received his key this afternoon at a ceremony in San
Narciso Village.
Rudolph Gentle, Hurricane Victim
“It left me crippled because the house was leaking, putting in lot
of water and I couldn’t do nothing else but write a letter to Mr. Gaspar
Vega to beg a help and now I have a house.”
And tomorrow we’ll show what the new homes look like. The cost
for construction adds up to $1.6 million. It was funded by the European Commission
and implemented by the Social Investment Fund. The European Commission’s
Ambassador to Belize personally handed the keys for their homes to ten families.
Ambassador Marco Mazzochi Alemanni is in the country visiting and today he also
inspected 150 kilometres of sugar roads that are under construction. He told
us he is satisfied with what he’s seen so far.
Ambassador Marco Mazzochi Alemanni, European Commission
“What I’ve seen is satisfactory but time will tell in particular
in terms of roads and in terms of shelters because design of a shelter as you
know is critical and in terms of roads are they going to stand up to the traffic.
Now the roads that we commissioned today are unpaved roads. Now most of the
roads that are under that program, 150 kilometers are going to be paved and
what is very interesting is that we already have one road that was refurbished
during the current program up north where we see a lot of traffic and that is
a good and a bad omen. It is a good omen because it means that people really
needed that road and a lot of traffic is getting deviated from other roads to
that road. What it also means is that we need to pave it very quickly otherwise
that kind of unpaved road cannot stand up to that kind of traffic. So this is
food for thought but I’m very satisfied.
The state that they are today is very helpful both for sugar cane farmers
and the sugar industry at large but also for the general public, for all the
people whether they are involved directly or indirectly in sugar production
or whether they are doing something else.”
Ambassador Alemanni says the EU has pledged $150 million in grants
to Belize under its 9th economic development fund.
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