Email

Print

And while Briceno outlined the major directive for health and social life, the Prime Minister outlined the fiscal and economic measures.  Basically that government will come up with 75 million dollars for a COVID response, starting by going to the house for 25 million:

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister 

"The actual budget debate scheduled for Thursday and Friday is up in the air. We talked about the possibility of not doing the debate at all, but there is a need to pass a general appropriations bill and so while we could postpone that for three months, I think it is. It would limit our spending. The better course of action is to pass the general appropriations bill and to add to that by way of an additional allocation that we would propose when we reach the committee stage of another 25 million dollars that would be earmarked especially and exclusively for the underpinning of our economic response to the effects of the COVID-19 crisis, that will be used principally as a relief for employees affected by the crisis especially those in the tourism industry. Now that's going to be borrowed money the Central Bank is in a position, in fact, to provide on a loan basis those additional funds to the government. It will increase the national debt but so what at a time like this we can't be at all shrinking violets. We can't be reluctant. We must come up with a robust response that is seen to be muscular in order to assure our people that we are absolutely going to provide relief. Each of us will appoint an economic Czar. We have already decided that our Czar will be the good Dr. Carla Barnett who you would think already has enough on her plate with all the labor matters but as you know she has a tremendous amount of experience with the international agencies. The leader is saying that Mr. Chris Coye who is a financial and legal wizard actually, I give him that, will be the opposition's economic Czar. They will draw on other resources as the need arises but they will be working in the first instance particularly with the Belize tourism board. We are ready now that C.A.B.E. has granted each of the member countries, remember C.A.B.E. is the Central American bank for economic integration, so that should be in government's coffers. So on top of the twenty-five million, that's a million US dollars in grant funding. There is another million dollars, Mrs. Hyde, Mrs. Charmane Hyde who is the C.E.O. of the Ministry of economic development is leading the efforts to interface with international financial institutions. There are another million US dollars that will come from an ongoing program we have with the World Bank."

"The climate-resilient infrastructure project. Unfortunately, the acronym is CRIP not CRIPS, CRIP. There are a million dollars that we can trigger from that fund US dollars as well so between that and the earlier million from C.A.B.E. that's another four million Belize so already we're at 29 million Belize dollars. There are some small grants from CDB so we're looking at another million more or less so we're above 30, 31 million and then Mrs. Hyde has agreed with the World Bank that out of that same fund from which the release of the million US can immediately be triggered there is the possibility of diverting. It's a 90 or 20 million fund of which we've only spent 3 0r 4 million. There is the possibility of diverting as much as 13, 12, 13, 12 million US dollars so add that to the 31 or 32 Belize that we already have and you'll see that we're going to be north of 50 million Belize dollars. We also are in touch with the IDB there is a 10 million dollar contingent line of credit that we have with them for natural disasters no they're telling us that they don't see COVID-19 as a natural disaster but they conceded that our representation that in fact that 10 million dollar line US 10 million dollar line ought to be diverted if they want to use that term in our view just re-classify it because it is a disaster. They've agreed that that is something they will, in fact, have under active consideration, so there is a possibility that we may be able to make use of the 10 million US more. Leader of the opposition I think has totted up where we are we're at like 55 million that would take us to, to what 75 million dollars. I hope that the total picture is such that it convinces you that we together are making absolutely sure, damn sure if the reverend lady will forgive me that as I said the response of our country to the economic decimation that this COVID-19 is causing is the best that it could possibly be. "