BELIZE CITY, Tues. Jan. 26, 2021– Last week the United Democratic Party held a press conference at which area representative for Mesopotamia, Hon. Shyne Barrow, excoriated the new Government of Belize’s approach to managing the various assistance programs. He pointed out in his presentation that the Minister of Human Development, Hon. Dolores Balderamos Garcia, has shared no detailed plan or timeline regarding any long-term effort of the ministry to address the need of thousands of Belizean families for food, funds and basic supplies in the midst of a dire economic fallout that has resulted from the spread of COVID-19.

“In the last House meeting when she gave her statement from ministers, there was absolutely no plan, no discussion as to specifically the COVID-19 Unemployment Relief Fund, the food assistance program, the BOOST, the pantry, which again under a public state of emergency, these things are necessary.” Hon. Barrow said.

During an interview with the media this past week, Minister of Human Development, Hon. Dolores Balderamos Garcia commented that the UDP has no moral ground to make such assertions and went on to say that the country is in this dire state of affairs because of their actions during the previous administration.

“I don’t have the crystal ball… Of course it is something we will have to review, but I can’t speak for what will happen in the new fiscal year. Of course, we want to continue helping our people, and we must continue to help the poorest of the poor; however, I do want to say that perhaps enough emphasis has not been placed before on the dire straits that the UDP government left this program in before we took over. They pretty much dried out the entire budget with wild spending, cronyism, corruption, you name it, and I shouldn’t be here today having to remind you of that, but it seems that it is so necessary because it seems to me that they have the face of brass now to be talking about X amount of persons were getting and now it’s been cut down,” Minister Balderamos Garcia retorted.

Minister Balderamos Garcia pointed out that the Government of Belize is not able to “spend what it doesn’t have” and pointed to the gross mismanagement that occurred under the UDP administration. “I will have to put the blame squarely where it belongs. The previous government, because of their corruption and because of their wild spending before November 11, left us in the situation that we are in. But I assure you, let me not say that we are backing down from any difficult question or anything, I assure you that we will continue the program up until the end of March, and we are looking very closely at how we are going to continue it,” she said.

In his remarks, Prime Minister John Briceño said, “We know that there is a need for the Grocery Bag program to continue, so we will be taking a hard look at the finances that are available and try to do everything possible to be able to continue that program.”