BELIZE CITY, Wed. May 6, 2020– A government press release today announced that Dr. Colin Young has been appointed as the new chairman of the Social Security Board.

Under the Social Security Board Act, a chairman can only serve for 5 years. Dr. Young’s appointment is effective today, Wednesday, May 6, 2020.

Dr. Young is no stranger to the Social Security Board, having served as its chief executive officer from 2017 until late last year, when he resigned to take up an appointment as the director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center.

Dr. Young has also served the Government of Belize as Chief Executive Officer in the Ministries of Agriculture and Energy and has served on the boards of a number of local and international organizations.

Dr. Young, who spearheaded the most recent increase in the Social Security contributions that must be paid by workers and employers before he stepped down as CEO, has returned to head the Social Security Board at a time of serious economic challenge, following the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last month, the former Social Security chairman, Doug Singh, a United Democratic Party insider and former Cabinet Minister, abruptly resigned from the position. Singh’s resignation occurred less than two hours after a media interview that he did with Belize Breaking News reporter Aaron Humes went viral on social media.

In the interview, Singh unleashed a tirade of obscenities as he rambled on discriminatingly about poor Belizeans, whose primary sin was that they had applied for assistance from the government’s COVID-19 unemployment program that is being channeled through the Social Security Board.

Feature photo: Dr. Colin Young