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The streets of Belize City are in a state. Name any street in the city and chances are that it has potholes. But that’s not news. The news is that starting tonight the City Council along with the Ministry of Works will begin repairing the city’s worse streets. The first street that will be paved is Orange Street in front of Extra House. It is closed tonight and will remain closed for the next 5 nights because it will be repaved. The work is being done after hours to minimize inconvenience to city residents. And it’s about time – because with the streets in a state the inconvenience was already at a maximum load. Here now is news of the relief.

Driver #1,
“The streets are in a terrible condition. They need to start fix and stop spend we money.”

Driver #2,
“All of those streets need to be fixed, mostly where I live back a Martin’s. Those are the worst ones.”

And for at least one driver, it doesn’t get worse than Orange Street.

Keith Swift,
“How would you describe Orange Street?”

Driver #3,
“Horrible, real horrible.”

And that is why Orange Street between Euphrates Avenue and West Street will be paved by the City Council through the Ministry of Works.

Zenaida Moya, Mayor of Belize City
“We will be working, starting tonight to do works to pave this portion from corner Euphrates to corner West Street of this stretch. It is something that is well needed, it all has to do with the fact that as you can see the rains have really torn up the streets.”

Dean Samuels, Councillor in charge of Works, Southside
“What we will be doing, we will be ripping it up, resurfacing it, so that this whole problem that we have with the holes and the potholes and drainage that this matter will be solved.”

Zenaida Moya,
“This particular stretch is an area that comes to mind immediately and works will start this evening. Again in terms of the funds that the council has, we know we can get a lot done if we work in conjunction with the Ministry of Works.”

Dean Samuels,
“Not forsaking the residential area, definitely that is ongoing works. We are stockpiling and we will be providing service to people in the residential areas but just the streets that are traversed and used by motorists and pedestrians, we are trying to put an immediate relief to these areas.”

On the north side, the City Council plans to cement the potholes on Freetown Road.

Eric Chang, Councillor – Works, Northside
“We are going to try to cement a portion of Freetown Road starting from around the gas station to Slaughterhouse Road, the corner at Belize Diesel. What happened is that around that area, I don’t know if you realize of the ramp, people drive fast and they break up the street and because of the coke trucks, the heavy trucks passing through. So that particular area of the street is broken really bad and besides that portion, we will still continue to do our best to patch the streets as much as we could.”

Dean Samuels,
“I know a lot of people try to separate the tail from the dog and would say the Ministry of Works is getting this job done. But City Council/Ministry of Works is the same government, we are providing service to the people, and the Ministry of Works will be helping us with this Orange Street and again thanks to them. What we are going to do, is we are going to take our little finances and we are going to put it in another area that it can be of most use. If the Ministry of Works is going to help us in this area then we can take the little resources and we can apply them to another part of the city.”

Zenaida Moya,
“As I said we did our tour of the city and we are looking at the main streets that need immediate attention. Again with the resources that we have, we have to ensure that it is the key streets that need the work that will get the attention. The others we will do remedial as best as we can as a council.”

So again Orange Street between West Street and Euprhrates Avenue will be closed from 6 pm to 6 am daily through to Sunday. Similar work is being done on Woods Street. The City Council says it is still receiving estimate for the repair work needed on Freetown Road. Mayor Zenaida Moya stressed to us that it is a collaboration between the City Council and the Ministry of Works.