P.M. Briceño Says At Least $20 Million Dollars Needed for Hurricane Recovery

The Briceño administration has come up with a tentative figure that is needed to assist the rebuilding of storm-ravaged communities in Belize District. In the wake of Hurricane Lisa, aerial and on-the-ground assessments have been conducted to determine the extent of damage. The Government of Belize estimates that ten million U.S. dollars will be necessary to aid with hurricane relief. The Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing is taking the lead on the physical recovery effort; however, other government agencies, including the Ministry of Human Development, are also critical in ensuring that those affected by the severe weather system are being taken care of as part of a massive humanitarian initiative. Last Thursday, Prime Minister John Briceño, accompanied by Foreign Minister Eamon Courtenay and NEMO Coordinator Shelton DeFour, flew over the areas that have been devastated by the hurricane.  What they observed allowed them to arrive at a cursory figure. We begin our newscast tonight by looking at what it will take financially to get Belize City and surrounding communities back on their feet.

Prime Minister John Briceño

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Minister Courtenay was with me on the flyover because Foreign Affairs is in charge of cooperation within the government.  Himself, along with Colonel DeFour quickly prepared a short document that is about two or three pages.  We used that and we took a guess estimate.  I think it was ten million U.S. dollars.  But we have the Ministry of Housing that is going house to house, constituency to constituency trying to look at what, trying to look at the number that we need to come up.  And again, the initial numbers that the Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing has come up with is approximately twenty million dollars which would include almost literally the rebuilding of the highway, the Philip Goldson Highway from the city up to the Haulover Bridge.  You know, that part has sunken, it has almost broken apart, so we have to fix that immediately and other parts of infrastructure that we need to do.  We have to fix the Supreme Court, three buildings were damaged, a few schools were damaged.  B.E.S., B.H.S., you know, they were also badly damaged. Of course, Hummingbird was well done so there was not a problem there. At least it seems so, I have not been told about anything else.  So all of these things, a lot of different things that we are doing all at the same time, so we are coming closer to what exactly we will be needing.”