But the reason for the Special Sitting of the House was to table and debate the Millennium Challenge Account Belize Authority Bill. The reason for the rush on this bill is because it will establish the authority that will serve as the implementing agents on behalf of the government. The authority must be established before September when GOB is expected to sign the agreement with the MCC.
And as the Prime Minister has said before, the $250 million dollars from the MCC - which he emphasized is not a loan, but a gift - will be used for the education and energy sectors. He expanded on that today.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Now the 250,000 million dollars compact funding will be disbursed over five years and will be split roughly as follows: 80% is going to be used for the education project and 20% for the energy project. Now the objective of the education project is to equitably increase the number of post primary graduates with the competencies relevant to labour market demands, responding to the root cause of the quality of education that has led to a shortage of trained professionals in all industries. The project includes A) establishing an education quality assurance system to assess and improve the quality of management and teaching, as well as the achievement of learning outcomes, B) capacity building for educational leadership and teachers, c) the provision of teaching and learning resources, D) support to increase the percentage of primary graduates that enroll in and complete secondary school, and E) support for the establishment of a national training agency and capacity building of the TVET sector to implement inclusive TVET programs that are aligned with labor market demands."
"Now the objective of the energy project is to lower the wholesale cost of electricity, responding to the root cause of the high cost of wholesale of electricity compared to a well functioning competitive electricity market. The project will support the government to implement its utility scale renewable electricity expansion plan in order to accomodate the viable and intermittent supply of power from solar energy without compromising reliability and/or power quality. The activity will also support BEL and PUC to modernize the grid."
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