At the House Meeting held on Friday, July 27th, the Prime Minister made startling revelations about Hon. Florencio Marin, Jr., his father and companies, that they are affiliated with which have or had large acres of land in their possession. A company by the name of Belcor Industrial Limited, for example, held 195 acres of land along the sea coast in Sarteneja. What’s worse is that each acre was purchased at a mere dollars each. And there are others dozens of other parcels being held or once held by companies, such as Coromex, and other company names in the Corozal Free Zone.Â
Through research at the Lands Department, the evidence on Marin, Jr. however, gets bigger. When his name is entered into the system his name pops up and there are 106 entries, which show his name – and all attributing land of 1/4 acre each to him. All of the land is located in San Jose Palamar.
Now for a bit of history. San Jose Nuevo Palmar has a storied history where the original inhabitants arrived there in 1936 and settled on 2,500 acres of land that was specifically allotted to them, after they were forcefully removed from the village of San Jose in the Yalbac area by the then Belize Estate and Produce Company. The villagers at the time endured severe hardships both during and after they were removed from their home village. When they finally received the land on the southern periphery of Orange Walk Town, it was with the specific understanding and in fact, laws were drawn up that no one other than the original villagers of the old San Jose could have tenure to the land in the new settlement.
That has been how it has worked out for decades so, it is a wonder to everyone how it is that Florencio Marin Junior’s name appears at the Lands Department as having tenure or having had tenure to the lands. One thing is clear, this took place during the previous PUP administrations and under them anything is possible.
