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PUPeez should scold Ms. Chan

FeaturesPUPeez should scold Ms. Chan

By Colin Hyde

   Both PM Briceño and Agriculture Minister Mai say that in the name of business they intervened in the Ms. Chan/Forestry Department standoff. These are smart guys, and it’s great for them, a noble objective to be so concerned about promoting business, for our country desperately needs success stories in this area. But by all calculations, this one might end up in the bad bargain category, the one labeled “penny wise, but pound foolish”.

   Not overlooking CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), which is a very important aspect of this case, we all know about trade wars. Minister Mai was just telling us a story last week about a container of Belizean products that is not being given special treatment by a Caribbean neighbor. It’s not impossible that some big country is offering the product at a cheaper price, and we are being stalled until we get frustrated. Out there it can get pretty rough. We don’t want to give anyone fodder to reject our produce.

   Belizeans really have to understand that our Quarantine Department is the most important defense we have for animal, plant and fish life in our country. People go abroad, they see things, and they want to bring them back to Belize. Some try to sneak in their organisms, and they run into the Quarantine Department. Some accept their error, and their organisms are destroyed. Some run to the minister. Ai, the protective PUP should complain to Ms. Chan. At the least, her fever for a few exotic plants made their leaders look weak.

   It appears in this case that Minister Mai was too eager to HELP, and calling on the PM compounded the felony. You have to ask WHY Ms. Chan felt she had to bring in plants that need special clearance? It’s possible she didn’t know better. Why weren’t the uncertified plants separated from the shipment and the rest allowed to go on to Ms. Chan’s nursery? Or were they? The PM was right that the plants needed special attention. You can’t blame him for wanting to assist. But it appears he persevered, and that’s a different horse.

   In all the discussions, the PUP leaders have insisted that their efforts were solely on behalf of business. But if I had to guess, I would say Ms. Chan has some friends in the PUP. The party lost some face on this one. Maybe they’ll claim membership in the human race and ask for some allowance for their sin, but the people had it to the gills with the previous band, so there’s very little slack in the rope. The people are demanding that the successor be better than the predecessor. Boy, that predecessor was a bad one.   

   The Quarantine Department needs to produce some infomercials showing the importance of guarding our borders. Many “good” plants and animals we grew up with are not native to Belize. In the plant world, mango, coconut, blackberry (Java plum), orange, flamboyant, and a number of others are not native to Belize. But some bad ones have gotten in. There are enough painful stories in the plant world to make us all understand why we have to be very careful. Itchgrass, a native of Asia, has become one of our worst weeds. We must vigilantly be on guard to protect our flora and fauna.

   It indeed would be excellent if we made some infomercials to educate our people about the work of the Quarantine Department, which involves ministries such as Forestry, Agriculture, and Fisheries, but maybe we won’t see any of those right now, not until Minister Mai recovers from being so helpful.

Referendum should be held over two weeks

   The referendum pushers have said they’ll be taking their sacks of petitions to the Governor General (GG) this week – that’s a formality — and from there the evidence for a referendum will be loaded onto the church buses and shipped to Belize City, to the Office of the Chief Elections Officer. Ordinarily the vetting process for the petitions shouldn’t take more than 2 months, and a referendum would be held shortly after, but how do you phrase a question on a law that is not yet settled?

   The referendum pushers are after overturning a law that is up for amendment. It will be interesting to see what Elections and Boundaries does with petitions signed by 18-year-olds about a matter that involves people who are 21 or older. I expect that people over 80, ahem, will be the anti-weed’s best demographic. You can’t separate veteran dogs from the old tricks they learned in the era when the world was warped against weed smoking.

   There’ll be much referendum talk in the coming weeks, and the first suggestion from me is that it be held over a period of two weeks, not one day. If the referendum is held over a period of a couple weeks, including weekends, the GOB won’t need to give a holiday. Employers will be happy for that. Covid stole a lot of time.  

   Ouch, a one-day referendum, tactically that would play into the hands of the referendum pushers. They are spoiling to ruin the legalization process, feverish, chomping at the bit, high if yu ask me, while most of us who are in favor, against propaganda, are looking at different parts of the law to see how they can be improved. Feverish will get it done in a single day. Lukewarm needs a more timely process.

   Those referendum bohgaz will be up early guzzling coffee, some swigging from the night before, to tank up on the caffeine boost so they won’t run out of gas in the long lines. They’ll want to be singing songs too, but I can’t think of a one from John Wesley or Joseph Niles that will serve an anti-weed rally. Indeed, all the proper chants belong to the weed heads…doctors smoke it, lawyers too…no, no, not pastors, they imbibe caffeine.

   The government doesn’t need to collect petitions to hold a referendum, so it would be good for them to get a number of other questions on the ballot. It is local currency that the GOB will be spending to conduct the referendum that the churches are pushing for, and our money they must spend wisely.

I’ll be very unhappy with Godwin…

   …if he does like Patt and Barrow, as some media houses have suggested. It’s all about the pedigree. We know where Barrow came from. He’s a robed one, a group that has tons to answer for, in regard to the decay in our country, and he made much of his mint in the service of the man who took over our telephone company and creamed off the value of voice. I said Barrow made a mint. What, whenever you see the robed crowd hanging around the rich and famous, they are rolling in a fat retainer.

    I don’t know much about Señor Patt. All we’ve got is that he went to school and got a degree. And, after the raucous caucus where the UDP hierarchy decided on the future of John from ‘pan who had too many bad friends to be trusted at the helm, I recall this Mr. Patt was extremely rude when speaking with the press.

   Now, Godwin, we all know where he came from. That man was our grand champion. Sure, he got a little sully when he went to work for the UDP government, but which monkey who climbs that high ever exits office with his backside completely clean? There’s a lot of mess in that territory. I say a man can lose his sainthood and still hold on to his, ehm, core virtues.

   I say, Godwin, try and clear your name, Braa, but don’t sue the poor people. By the way, this for that, Mr. Barrow: whatever happened to those million-dollar projects we were told we would get from the BTL deal?

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