Earlier on in the news, we showed you all the commotion inside the House of Representatives at today’s budget presentation. Well, while the representatives were feuding about official House business, a small number of residents from the Stann Creek West Villages of Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and San Roman was protesting outside against the Government.
Their issue is a lease approval that the Ministry of Natural Resources has granted to the company, Belize Wind Energy Limited. That 2019 lease allows the private company to develop almost 2000 acres of land which is near to the Santa Cruz Village.Â
We understand that villagers from that community have intentions for that land to be used to expand their boundaries. Reports to 7News are that a few of those villagers have already built structures and set up farms on this disputed land.
So, they got a permit to protest against the lease, and here’s why the PUP Stann Creek West Area Rep. supports them:
Hon. Rodwell Ferguson - PUP Stann Creek West
"They are disputing the issue of 1,541 acres of land for a major land developer in the Placencia peninsula. Santa Cruz is one of the fastest growing communities in the country of Belize. It's only 20 years old and it's almost the size of Independence and Ladyville already. Even the Ministry of Rural Development have plans to expand Santa Cruz into a town and now issuing 2,000 acres of land parallel to the villages and that will stop Santa Cruz from going into the expansion that they wanted to desire. So the people came out today and they want to protest and so I'm supporting them 100 percent."
Reporter
"You will have expected that they would have been more people outside?"
Hon. Rodwell Ferguson
"No, Santa Cruz is a very productive community, so people work and so the majority went today and these are the few that could have come out and supported."
Reporter
"Now the government has been ignoring because they have been at this in terms of the water board issue, you also have spoken about it in the house. What do you expect is going to happen?"
Hon. Rodwell Ferguson
"They will continue to ignore, so I said in a couple months’ time when they are gone and we are going to give the people what they are requesting."
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