Today, the village of Hattieville, sixteen miles from the metropolis, Belize City, and home to some 1,500 hardy souls, both transplants and descendants of those who first settled here thanks to the village’s namesake, Hurricane Hattie of 1961, seemed quiet, as usual.
Does the recent agreement that Government signed with the new owners of Universal Health Services (UHS) amount to another breach of the Finance and Audit (Reform) Act, 2005? That’s the question we posed to Financial Secretary Joe Waight today when we queried the details of the still undisclosed agreement.
Trekking across Belize’s most picturesque landscape—through the lush citrus valley, majestic Maya mountains, and cool coastal plains, an estimated 2,500 people converged on the small Garifuna village of Barranco, where the Millennium Prince of Garifuna Music, Andy Palacio, was laid to rest in a downpour so heavy it appeared as if even The Almighty Bungiu had a heavy heart over his sudden departure.
We are almost at the end of January 2008, and the illegal settlement of Guatemalans at Santa Rosa on the Belize side of the border has still not been extinguished. In fact, a majority of the 17 families that were there in 2007 still remain. Only 8 of the families were removed on January 4, 2008, according to a press release from the Organization of American States (OAS).
In a press release dated January 24, 2008, the UDP were at great pains to, and justifiably so, condemn the PUP government for “failure to upgrade any of our football stadiums countrywide to FIFA-approved international standards. Those stadiums are all owned by the Government of Belize. It is therefore the government’s responsibility to upkeep and to upgrade them as required.” I am 100% in agreement with that position.
The General Elections are down to the final two weeks and one group hoping to swing the vote in the “right” direction is the Belize Institute for Social, Economic, and Political Progress, B.I.S.E.P.P.
The monthly agreed payment of $300,000 to UHS closely resembles the $270,000 monthly of taxpayers’ money Musa would have paid to the Belize Bank for the 29 million loan motion presented to the House in May 2005 on behalf of UHS investors
Elections are about two weeks away, and in our effort to add to the pre-election debate, we intend to bring you a series of interviews with key politicians and political entities. Last week, we requested interviews with leaders of the two mass parties – the PUP and the UDP. We were able to interview UDP leader Dean Barrow on Tuesday, and we have arranged to interview PUP leader Said Musa next Wednesday.
How is the PUP rated at the end of its second term of office? According to a poll released today by the Society for the Promotion of Education and Research (SPEAR), the ruling Musa administration gets a “D” as its grade point average (GPA).
Motorcades of red, blue and yellow rolled in the streets of Belize City this morning and this afternoon, as the political parties brought their candidates to Mahogany Street for nomination for General Elections 2008, scheduled for Thursday, February 7, 2008. This is the day, Nomination Day, when everybody is still a winner, in his/her mind. The energy and the excitement were high.
