And while the NEWCO settlement is a sovereign matter - today's house meeting wound down on a much more local note. Orange Walk Central area representative John Briceno spoke on the adjournment about the devastating fire which happened in his constituency, claiming four lives.
Hon. John Briceño - Leader of the Opposition
"That fire strikes close to home. I knew this young family. They lived about two blocks away from where I live. My son goes to the barber shop; my youngest son would go there to the barber shop. My wife Rosanna taught these three children at St. Peter's Anglican School and on Sunday the most regrettable thing is that there was a fire hydrant right in front of the Petillo family and the fire hydrant was sealed, it was disconnected from the WASA mainline. I have to say, $500 million of Petrocaribe was wasted; all kind of parties all kind of giveaways and not a dollar was spent on improving the fire department. There is absolutely no excuse for the fire department not to be aware that these fire hydrants were not working; no excuse, madam speaker. And that is why I speak about what we call incompetence in this government and the breakdown of our system of governance and institutions. I want the record of this house to reflect that while those on the other side approved more for travel and subsistence in this year's budget, for example, the office of the prime minister is more than what they approved for equipment for the fire department. But in the fire department they have allocated for vehicles for the fire department only $197,745. So, in three ministries alone we are spending close to $5 million in travel and subsistence and we are going to spend this year $197 thousand for the fire department for equipment or for vehicle. Something is wrong, madam speaker, something is fundamentally wrong. Madam speaker, we on this side of the house we are ready to vote yes if those on the government side would bring appropriations for the purchase of new fire trucks."
Hon. Patrick Faber- Acting Prime Minister
"The minute a fire takes place and some tragedy happens we are quick to blame the fire service when, the truth is that even if there were all the fire hydrants in the world, with all the water in the world, with all the pumps in the world, tragedies will still happen because we have closed our eyes in our wider Belizean society to things that we could be doing to prevent this kind of tragedy."
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