The City Council tells us that there are about 100 miles of streets
in Belize City – and ask any resident and they’ll tell you that
half of those are bad and the rest are very bad. But the Ministry of Works says
it will pave about 20 of those miles. They’ve started in the area of Saint
Joseph Street which featured some of the most pothole laden and highly trafficked
streets on the north side. And while the Ministry of Works is doing the job
with funds from central government, today, City Councilor with responsibility
for northside streets Roger Espejo did some political profiling on those newly
paved streets. Here’s what he told us about this and the prospect of paving
other streets.
Roger Espejo, Councilor – Works
“We recently asphalted, actually. We’ve paved some streets and
we are happy to announce that and show to the public that amidst all the bad
news coming from City Hall, we have good things also happening and we want to
remind the people, we want to show the people that. So recently we paved Landivar
Street, the street right behind me. We’ve also paved St. James Street
and soon we will be paving this entire length of St. Joseph Street.”
Jules Vasquez,
“While I would be happy to join you, normally be happy to join in the
self-congratulation, the fact is number one, City Council didn’t do this,
Ministry of Works did this and it was Ministry of Works’ money and number
two, should we congratulate you for doing your job, is that news that you’re
doing your job? It is only remarkable because so often the City Council fails
to do its job that when a job is done it seems like news but really it is just
your job.”
Roger Espejo,
“You’re absolutely right and no self-congratulation is warranted
and actually that isn’t the issue here. The issue is to show people that
the council and the Ministry is working. By and large that is the only issue
here. You’re absolutely right in saying the Ministry did most of the work
here but it was an initiative that was initiated by the council and it really
is for the city residents and what we want to get across, the message, is that
this is being done for the city on behalf of the council and yes, a major part
from the Ministry.”
Jules Vasquez,
“How many more streets will be done under this project?”
Roger Espejo,
“Well as they say slow are the wheels that grind for government. We
want to do about 29 streets on the north side, that was the envisioned scope
when we met with Ministry about two months ago. It really depends on the budget;
whatever we can’t do this year, we will have to do under the budget for
next year.
We don’t want to disillusion people or give people false hopes that
their street is coming next but the way this area was selected is because you
had three major streets that were really in bad decay and they were proximate
to each other; you had this street connecting to Landivar Street, St. Joseph
to Landivar, Landivar to St. James and so that right was a strategy to do those
streets at the same time.”
The Ministry of Works is also doing a full clean up of the area between
Baymen Avenue and St. Thomas Street. But now that BML has cleared up its confusion
with City Hall, will the works employees – who number over 140 –
be duplicating efforts of the BML employees. Seems so...today BML’s owner
told us they have no joint plan of works.
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