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Yesterday Dr Osmond Martinez spoke about the finalized MCC grant of 250 million dollars. According to the PM, negotiations have been in the works for over two years, and all that's left now is for it to be ratified. Briceno told us how that money will be used.

John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I think it's historic that it is our government that one year after we were in government, the United States government saw fit to sign a compact with Belize through the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the MCC, they look at the government, they look at what we're doing, they look at how we're handling the economy, the issues of the private sector, the issues of transparency and accountability, and they saw that we have been doing the right things and so since 2021, I think it was December 2021, we've been negotiating as to what it is that we want. We immediately said the two main things that we want to address is the issue of education and energy, we didn't have to go through no long process of consultations and that's what we did. The negotiations were finalized and it comes up to a total of $250M Belize, of which 80% is going to be invested in education and 20% into energy. Now that that has been finalized, it will go to the US congress for it to be ratified, and likewise it will go into our National Assembly for us to be able to ratify so I'm quite excited, I'm quite pleased and I want to put on record my appreciation to the US government, to President Biden and certainly Ambassador Kwan and all the people who have helped us to make this possible."