Millennium Challenge Compact Moves Closer to Reality

The countdown is on for the official launch of the Millennium Challenge Compact, a one hundred and twenty-five million U.S. dollar agreement between Belize and the United States Government. The launch is scheduled for September eighteenth, but first, Belize must ratify the agreement. Today, Prime Minister John Briceño introduced an amendment to the Millennium Challenge Act to clear the way for that to happen. He also used the opportunity to explain how the funding will be invested once the Compact gets underway.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Mr. Speaker I would like to take the opportunity to reiterate my governments support for this program and our support to see the program through a successful completion. And I take the opportunity to publicly ask the leader of the opposition and its members to support this. It is something good. It is a hundred and twenty-five million dollars, U.S. that the U.S. government is giving Belize to modernized education, to realign education with the economy and at the same time looking at modernization the legislation for energy, but also looking at its infrastructure, which is particularly what we ant to do with the monies that is going to be set aside for energy. It is to replace the submarine cable from mainland Belize to Ambergris Caye, Sanpedro. That line has outlived its life and it should be replaced before 2019. So we are taking the opportunity to fund that. That will not be enough. The government will still have to put in money to fund that.”

 

The proposed amendment is expected to go to house committee for further consultation.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

Watch the full newscast here: