August 26, 2010
Dear Editor,
Let me begin by using the words of the legendary Bob Marley, “Police and politician, me no trust none a dem.” After my personal experiences with Belize’s political system, I have come to the same conclusion.
My story begins somewhere around January of 2009. My common-law-husband and I have been renting for a number of years now. As a result of this we decided that we would go and visit the Honourable Minister of Housing and see if he would be able to help us in obtaining a house. I applied for the day off from work and my common-law-husband and I went to the Minister’s office. After hours of waiting we got to see the Minister, who told us that he could do nothing for us as we needed to first have a piece of land. We were disappointed, as we had already tried obtaining a piece of land from the previous administration, but that was also futile.
Nonetheless, we did not lose hope. After several months my brother-in-law helped us to locate a gentleman who was selling a parcel of land in the St. Martin de Porres area. In April 2009, my common-law-husband and I approached the Holy Redeemer Credit Union and after about a month we were able to secure a loan to purchase the parcel of land from the gentleman.
The property was basically a piece of swamp and, as such, needed much landfill before we could start to build anything. It was at this point my common-law-husband approached the Honourable Minister Martinez and asked him if he would be able to help us with a couple loads of land fill. This was around the middle of August 2009. He told my common-law-husband he would be able to help him, but for us to just hold on until after the September celebrations that were coming up. We are now approaching September 2010 and to date we have not received a single load of land fill from the Honourable Minister. With the grace of God we have been able to secure the finances needed to purchase the backfill ourselves; it took us a year and a half to fill the property, but we have done it.
After obtaining the property and putting in the necessary backfill, we again approached the Honourable Minister of Housing and informed him that we had gotten the parcel of land; we filled out forms for the Venezuelan Housing Project, copied Social Security Cards and everything we were told we needed to do. A year and a half has already passed and we have heard nothing from the Honourable Minister; my common-law-husband has made several attempts to ask the Minister what is happening and has to date gotten no favourable response.
Despite all of this we have not given up. We both work very hard and by the grace of God have started on our own project. The point of my story is just to show how our political system is not geared towards making us economically independent. I am certain that they are many youths in our society who would like to own their own property, but do not have the opportunity to so do. As a result they become slaves to landlord and barely have enough to survive from day to day.
My experiences have made me lose whatever little faith I had in our political system and I am now at the point where I do not even feel the need to vote. Many critics would jump up and say that is foolish of me and that I would have no say in what goes on in my country, but that is exactly how I feel – like I have no say, I feel like all I do is vote for these people to go to Belmopan and come up with laws that end up screwing the poorest of the poor, instead of helping us.
I listened to Bill Lindo a while ago in an interview with Jules Vasquez, where Jules was asking him about the ton of properties in his name and his children’s name. I was appalled to hear him say that that was his children’s rights as Belizeans. It made me wonder if I was not a Belizean, if the hundreds upon hundreds of youths living in the Southside, and even Northside, were not Belizeans as well, if we too do not have a right to obtain a piece of property. I am not mad at him for acquiring his wealth. I have no gripes with that and I am happy for him: he is a businessman and as such profit is his game. What I am upset with is the system that is in place and the Honourable Ministers who claims to work for the poorest of the poor.
Despite all of this, Belize is where I was born and raised and has been my home for the past twenty-nine years; even with all the hardships I would not want to live anywhere else. Between me and my common-law-husband, we will give our children a home that they can call their own and not have to worry about the landlord putting them out in the middle of the night. And knowing that we did it on our own will make it all the more worthy of living in.
(Signed)
Royalyn Amanda Alarcon