P.C.C. Finances Spent with Four Extra Months to complete Project

The People’s Constitution Commission was configured in November 2022 with a mandate to review Belize’s Constitution, to consult with the people of Belize, to make notes of what those consultations reflect, and to present them to the Prime Minister in a report. The work was to have been completed within eighteen months, but unforeseen delays required a six-month extension. The commission had hoped for a budget of seven million dollars to conduct the work, but was only given one point one million to work with. The commission had to eliminate a great part of the plan it had that included media coverage for its consultative process in order to cut costs. It has long invested the money it was allotted for the project and is hoping that another allotment will be granted in order to finish up the next four months of work.  Will it be able to get it done in that time that is left? We posed that question to the Chairman of the P.C.C, Anthony Chanona.

 

Anthony Chanona, Chairman, People’s Constitution Commission

“Having spent over one and a half million dollars to do we cannot just show things together. It has to represent.”

 

Marion Ali

Is there a need, you think, for another extension?

 

Anthony Chanona

“I’ve heard that question been asked of me that there’s need for, there might be need for more time. That would take a legislative amendment because the legislative amendment – the legislative law we have said eighteen months, which ended in May, six months which ends in November.  I want to believe, Marion, that we have all the information; we have a lot of it, but if we can double down and dedicate these next four months to putting together the information from the commission to the people and back to the commission and work hard into the wee hours in the morning. In October, I’ll be able to give you a straight answer.”