CENTRAL FARM BUDGET GONE, - LAYS OFF WORKERS.

Central Farm owes discarded worker 4.5 months back pay.

 Listening to the sad tale of a couple of hardworking Belizeans, now down on their luck.  The man worked for the Chinese Agriculture Research Mission at Central Farm for 10 or 11 years and the family are hardworking campesino types.  The wife does house cleaning around the twin towns, but the man had  a full time job at Central Farm. They and their kids have PERMANENT RESIDENCY  and he has paid all his social security up.  But now he is out of a job and the family are in dire straits.

  Don't know the full story from the viewpoint of Central Farm, but the Taiwanese phased out of agriculture vegetable research and handed everything over to the Central Farm staff.  Since then the man has not been paid his salary for over 4 months.  They keep putting him off , UNTIL NEXT MONTH.  I presume the Central Farm are trying to deal with a budget that was fully committed and do not have the funds to pay up?  Or somebody in administration is getting set to steal the guy's job for a relative, as these sort of deals go with government workers? Anyway his job is gone for him.  He was lied to and told he didn't qualify as he was not a Belizean.  Lacks the knowledge to argue the point.  Certainly as PERMANENT RESIDENTS, they are full Belizeans.
  I've known them for most of the ten years and respect them greatly.  They came up from a small wooden one room shack in which they lived with their kids and rented.  We used to trade flowers we were potting together.  Eventually they got an empty lot in Hillview and have built their own house. Even bought a car.  The wife works one day a week for us, doing house cleaning. Has done so for at least 8 years.

  The thing is being illiterate, they are at a disadvantage in trying to deal with the Central Farm bureaucracy.  I was impressed by the man, he started as just a cheap vegetable farm worker and became FOREMAN.  What he knows about growing vegetables now is equal to all the Taiwanese mission expert workers that have been here doing experimental research.  Seems a waste of valuable talent?  The kids are going to need school fees, and books and all that, but now they are destitute living off charity, here in Hillview.

  Anybody around twin towns need a farm worker, will vouch for the guy.   Too bad I have cancer, or I would set up an ACQUAPONICS OPERATION and train him for that.