And while King didn't know about any 50 grand, another UDP Representative told us differently.
Edmund Castro also had a novel way to get his Christmas gifts out. Now he has dozens of villages in his division, so a motorcade was out of the question. But he did do things differently; to put a twist on an old saying, he bought form Peter to give Paul.
Today in Maskall Village He explained how he kept it in the division:..
Monica Bodden
These are fresh vegetables that Minister Castro purchased from famers in Belize Rural North to give as Christmas gifts to constituents.
Instead of apples, they get tomatoes and instead of turkey and ham they get green peppers, lettuce and cabbage.
Hon. Edmund Castro - Area Representative, Belize Rural North
"At this time, what we're doing is buying all the vegetables, 15,000 - 20,000 pounds of vegetables, of each kind, about 7 or 8 of them."
The vegetables were purchased for 13 thousand dollars from 13 famers in the area and were distributed to fifteen hundred families across Belize Rural North.
Hon. Edmund Castro
"Across the 20+ villages that we have, it's approximately 500 families in the old road, 500 families between Sandhill and Rhaburn Ridge, and 500 families in Belize River Valley area. No matter how we try to shrink it, we actually can't take it down to any less than 1,500 families."
Marion Ali - Love News
"But where did the money come for this?"
Hon. Edmund Castro
"This year, we're receiving $50,000 from the Government of Belize to assist the families in our different constituencies. So we're using-"
Marion Ali - Love News
"That's the area reps, the UDP -"
Hon. Edmund Castro
"I don't know. As a minister of Government, that's what we're getting through the Government of Belize, and we are doing our best to try to stretch it to assist. In our case, we are doing 1,500 families, and we're spreading the wealth with the farmers who produced most of these fruit and vegetables in our basket year."
Marion Ali - Love News
"$15,000 will be spent. What will happen to the other $35,000 as you're concerned."
Hon. Edmund Castro
"Well, I said approximately. We purchased over 5,000 pounds of rice, over 5,000 pounds of flour, and over 5,000 pounds of sugar. We have over 3,000 bags of sauces. We have cooking oil and so on, so, we've spread it across. For us to take care of 1,500 families, it normally costs in the neighborhood of about $75,000 for us. So, I have to go out to beg and hustle, and try get the other food items. So, the $50,000 is nowhere - if you do the math, even at a $50 bag, by the time you get to 1,000 bags, you would have been out of money. So, we have to go and hustle the rest."
This morning a representative from each village council in Belize Rural North arrived in Maskall to pick up bags of vegetables for their villagers.
23 families from Bomba and 19 families from Santa village are just a few who will benefit from this Christmas gesture.
Marion Ali - Love News
"How were these people selected?"
Ana Ramirez - Secretary of Bomba Village
"Everybody in the village."
Jessica Hernandez - Resident of Santana Village
"The chairman just helped me to represent him. He was supposed to come pick up, but he went to work, so I came and picked it up."
Marion Ali - Love News
"These are for distribution throughout the village?"
Jessica Hernandez
"Yes ma'am, well it's a very good thing because the farmers plant, and then you have they have somewhere to sell it to. The area rep. bought it back to give to the people."
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