BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Dec. 10, 2020– On December 7, 2020, the Government of Belize announced that the National Assembly will be officially opened on Friday, December 11. The inaugural sitting of the Senate will take place at 9:00 a.m. and will be followed by the first sitting of the House of Representatives at 10:00 a.m.
The Government and the Opposition have since appointed the party officials that they have selected to sit in these honorable Houses.
Unofficial reports are that former PUP senator Valerie Woods will be nominated Speaker of the House of Representatives. Her nomination will be confirmed with an election which will take place at the first sitting of the House on Friday.
Woods was recently appointed Chair of Caribbean Women in Leadership. A Deputy Speaker will also be elected to the House.
Sources also say that Carolyn Trench-Sandiford will be appointed as the new President of the Senate.
The names of the 13 senators who will sit in the upper House have also surfaced. For the PUPs, Eamon Courtney, SC, is expected to be named Leader of Government Business. Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Chris Coye, has also been nominated as a senator.
Nurse Isabel Bennett will be returning to the Senate, and Collet Montejo, former Assistant Secretary-General for the PUP, has been named a new senator.
Ericka Jang, a PUP councilor and new president of the PUP’s United Women’s Group, will be a new senator, along with Bevin Cal, the Chief of Staff for the PUP’s Belize Youth Movement. In total, six senators were nominated for the PUP.
The social partner senators are as follows: Kevin Herrera is now business senator. He is the former CEO of the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry and current CEO of Protel BPO LTD. Bishop Moses Benguche has been appointed to represent the Council of Churches, and Senators Elena Smith and Osmany Salas return to the Senate to represent the country’s unions and NGO’s respectively.
Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Patrick Faber, announced the three UDP lawyers who would be nominated by the UDP as senators. One of the three appointees is Michael Peyrefitte, who will act as the Lead Opposition Senator, while former senator, Aldo Salazar, will hold over for Mayor Khalid Belisle, who will be appointed a UDP senator at the end of his tenure in local government. Also, attorney Sheena Pitts has been chosen as a new UDP senator.
Faber made these announcements at a press conference held on Wednesday, December 9, where he also announced his shadow cabinet.
Faber gave the names of 15 UDP officials who will shadow the current 17-member PUP cabinet. Faber himself will be naturally be shadowing Prime Minister Hon. John Briceño, who is also Minister of Finance, Economic Development, and Investments. He will be assisted by Stephen Duncan and Hon. Tracy Panton.
Hon. Hugo Patt, who was not present at the press conference, will shadow Hon. Cordel Hyde as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Natural Resources, Petroleum, and Mining.
Patt will also be shadowing the Minister of Agriculture, Food Security, & Enterprise, Hon. Jose Mai.
Beverly Williams has been chosen to shadow the Minister of Public Utilities & Logistics, Hon. Rodwell Ferguson.
The Infrastructure Development & Housing Minister will be shadowed by OJ Elrington.
Earth Lopez and Hon. Shyne Barrow will shadow Hon. Francis Fonseca and Hon. Dr. Luis Zabaneh in the Ministry of Education.
Aldo Salazar is being asked to shadow Hon. Florencio Marin Jr., who is the Minister of National Defence & Border Security.
Francis Humphreys will shadow the Minister of Rural Transformation, Community Development, Labour & Local Government, Hon. Oscar Requeña.
The shadow Minister for the Ministry of Human Development is Lisbeth Novelo, and Elodio Aragon will shadow Hon. Kareem Musa as Police Minister.
Omar Figueroa will shadow Hon. Landy Habet in the Sustainable Development, Climate Change & Disaster Risk Management Ministry.
The UDP’s shadow Minister for Ministry of Youth, Sports & E-Governance is Hon. Shyne Barrow.
The UDP leader, Faber, will act as the shadow Minister of Health and Wellness until March of next year, when the party’s intended pick is scheduled to take up the task.
Hon. Tracy Panton will also be shadowing the Minister of Tourism.
Hilberto Campos has been chosen to shadow Hon. Andre Perez in the new Ministry of the Blue Economy and Civil Aviation, and Mayor Khalid Belisle will be shadowing the Minister of Public Service, Constitutional & Political Reform.
Michael Peyrefitte has been chosen to shadow Eamon Courtney, SC, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade & Immigration.
The newly appointed senator, Sheena Pitts, will shadow Attorney General Magali Marin Young inside the Ministry of the Attorney General.
Notably, elected area representative for Queen’s Square, Hon. Denise Barrow, former Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow’s sister, will not be a part of the shadow Cabinet. Faber said, “Sista B, as we affectionately call her, has indicated that she will focus her energy on representing the people of Queen’s Square, which we know she can do very capably, and in fact, she wants to focus on that, and so she has asked us to excuse her from any of the duties of the shadow Cabinet, and that we can count on her full support.
“So, we will not be mentioning Sista B in the shadow Cabinet, but she is a dedicated member of this party.”
Belize’s thirteenth National Assembly will officially open on Friday, December 11, 2020.