Senator Faber Questions Public Awareness of CARICOM Agreement

Wednesday marked the first day of CARICOM’s Free Movement of Persons across Belize, Barbados, Dominica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Under this agreement, residents of these countries can now live, work, or study indefinitely across these borders once they receive the stamp of approval. While the move has been supported by the government, opposition senator Patrick Faber raised concerns at a UDP press conference on Wednesday. He said that the general public, business owners, and even churches may not fully understand what this agreement means and challenged the media to find out if people are aware of this historic step.

 

Patrick Faber, Lead UDP Senator

“I am willing to bet that if the media people were to take their cameras on the streets, like Two Cents Cam does sometimes, and ask the Belizean people what this means to them, they will tell you all they have no clue. I’m willing to bet that if you go in the churches. I’m willing to bet that if you go to the market. I’m willing to bet that if you go into the business places and ask the employers the potential employers, what is the full scale effect of Belize signing onto this and it coming into effect, today October 1^st; they will tell you that they don’t know, and that is to be put squarely on the shoulders of the government of Belize. One of the other, one of the other four countries, my friends, is Barbados, and the prime minister of Barbados held a press conference to inform. In fact, the minute. I repeat this from the last press conference, the foreign minister of Barbados, the minute he came back from the Jamaica CARICOM heads meeting, where the foreign minister sometimes attends, he went back and held a press conference in his country. And he was able to share what the sectors of the public were doing, what the various ministries were doing. He took on the tough questions, but in Belize, we don’t know. We have not a clue.”