| Funding for Bze-Guat Effort Fading Fast |
| Fri, March 17, 2017 |
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| But what is also pushing things forward is the fact that the process is running out of funding. Since the start, A Group of Friends - mainly wealthy European Nations - have been funding the efforts and keeping the Adjacency Zone office open. But after 11 years of confidence building with no resolution, they are growing impatient and unwilling to fund a project that has no foreseeable end. Elrington said that has created a sense of some urgency:..
Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Foreign Minister of Belize
"The taxpayers in the European countries pay the money but they have been telling us our taxpayers are not going to be funding the OAS office indefinitely - you've got to get on with this issue."
"The monies that are presently being utilized there are monies that we have sought jointly from the government of Taiwan. That is not going to last much longer, and the Europeans still have not provided the funding although they gave us every assurance and have been doing so for a year now that it's going to come imminently. So we keep our fingers crossed."
Jules Vasquez
"There is an acute need now of winding up the process."
Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Foreign Minister of Belize
"Yes, we are in a...we don't have the luxury of time."
Jules Vasquez
"So, is it fair to say that the Secretary General was here to encourage both sides to let's wind it up."
Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Foreign Minister of Belize
"I think it's fair to say that."
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