BELMOPAN, Tues. Aug. 4, 2020– During a sitting of the House of Representatives today, Minister of Foreign Affairs Wilfred “Sedi” Elrington delivered a searing criticism of the ruling United Democratic Party, to which he belongs, calling its three terms in government a failure.

For the past twelve years Elrington has sat in Cabinet as one of the most powerful and senior members of the United Democratic Party. During his address, however, which surprised everyone in the House, he pointed out that Government is in part responsible for the decay in the family structure, which has caused the tremendous increase of crime and violence in Belize.

Elrington criticized his government for failing to remedy the root causes of the problems in our society, and said, “We have to find out what is happening in the home. How is it that a child, after nine months, is born a little innocent baby, and in ten, twelve years after, that baby becomes a monster?”

Elrington added, “The average Belizean boy, the average girl out there, can’t come up with fifty cents as we speak, can’t find a job, don’t have skills, can’t read, can’t write, can’t compute after thirty-seven years of [our] independence.”

“Clearly, we have failed them,” he said.

Hon. Julius Espat (PUP area representative, Cayo South) called Elrington’s comments “hypocrisy at its heights,” pointing out that Elrington is a part of the problem, since he has been in office for the past three terms of the UDP government.

Espat said that Elrington’s sudden change of heart is a façade, commenting, “He was there … every decision that is made there, he has subscribed to it, or he would have been able to walk out as an honorable man.

“Now, he is trying to play … ridiculous, Madam Speaker. We should not tolerate this. The people of Belize have to look through this façade. It is a façade. It is hypocrisy at its highest.”

On Elrington’s own side of the aisle, Hon. Michael Finnegan (Mesopotamia area rep) pointed out that Elrington’s own Samuel Haynes Institute of Excellence was built to address many of the social ills that he, Elrington, mentioned.

Finnegan said, “He has tried with this big institute, this gargantuan institution that should have solved all the problems in Pickstock. The problem remains gargantuan.”