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SSB inaugurates the David L. McKoy Building

HighlightsSSB inaugurates the David L. McKoy Building

BELMOPAN, Wed. June 9, 2021– The Social Security Board inaugurated a new business complex on their compound in Belmopan. The David L. McKoy Business Center is a state-of-the-art business complex that has been named after a former PUP Minister who pioneered the Social Security scheme in Belize. The building will now house the SSB offices in Belmopan and also the new Office of the Prime Minister, which has been located at the Sir Edney Cain Building for the past decade.

The David L. McKoy Business Center is four stories tall, and within the center are commercial office spaces that will be offered for rent to various businesses in order to generate a return on the $8.2-million- dollar investment. The director of the SSB board, Wendy Castillo, and the Investment Chairman of the SSB, Reynaldo Magaña, both took the podium at the ribbon-cutting ceremony to discuss the SSB’s excitement in unveiling their new project.

“Today we inaugurate the David L. McKoy Business Center. It’s quite a marvel of a building, which will be iconic for the city of Belmopan. I must say, as I was driving in, I noticed the top of the building, and I said ‘Wow that’s a beautiful building. That’s something that we will always remember Belmopan for.’  It boasts 45,500 rentable square feet, is fully equipped with business amenities and was constructed at a total of $8.2 million of the Social Security Investment Fund. Based on our estimates, we will recover the investment in ten years at an eight-point-two percent rate of return. This is a solid investment, in the investment portfolio that will generate the necessary returns to keep the fund fluid, to service short- term and long-term benefits for the people of Belize for years to come,” Magaña said.

He also said that the SSB will receive an immediate return on this investment, as the building will house a number of Government offices, NGOs and BPOs which presently employ thousands of Belizeans.

 In her remarks, SSB’s board director, Wendy Castillo mentioned the vision of the late Hon. George Cadle  Price for the SSB:  “In his address delivered on June fifteenth 1982, on the occasion of the first annual report of the Social Security Fund, the Right Honorable George Cadle Price, as Prime Minister of a newly independent Belize, said Social Security is but the beginning of developing the proper attitudes of a responsibility for older or injured citizens so that we can become conscious of the human and social obligations which we must strive to meet. Today the Investment Committee of your Social Security Board is doing just that. With its new building, we are fulfilling its mission to have a financially stable program to provide a lifetime of coverage to many thousands of Belizeans ensured through the scheme,” she said.

Deputy Prime Minister, Hon. Cordel Hyde also spoke at the ceremony and paid tribute to the late David L. McKoy, who he said first had the vision for a social security scheme fifty-two years ago. Hyde remarked that Minister McKoy could have never imagined that twelve years later “his vision would impact so many Belizeans”. Mr. McKoy’s daughter, Lottie McKoy Gill, was invited as a special guest to the ceremony. In speaking with the media, Mrs. McKoy Gill said that the family was pleasantly surprised by the SSB’s decision to name the building after her father.

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