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We got both sides of the story, while looking at the bigger picture of a slowdown in garbage collection:...

Jules Vasquez reporting
Today 7 Garbage trucks were parked in the Belize Waste Control compound. The company's operations are at a virtual standstill - and it shows on the city's southside where it was garbage day and bins and bags were full to overflowing to falling on the street.

We did see one truck out but it was collecting commercial not residential garbage. Tony Griffith - the owner of Waste Control says they simply could not afford continue operating at a loss:

Anthony Griffith, Owner - Belize Waste Control
"This thing can't continue like this. We are not getting paid. We got to bore the cost at serving the city for so long, the money going to dry up. I took out a loan out already, $85,000 loan to keep this operation going."

Jules Vasquez
"Are you trying to hold the city hostage?"

Anthony Griffith
"Hell no, nothing like that. If that was the case we would have been out a long time ago. If that was the case I wouldn't have borrowed money to keep this operation going. Two weeks ago these tanks were completely dry - bot a drop of fuel in them. That has never happen to us before."

But what has happened before is this - in fact it happened in four of the last five years. And that's because every year in November the city council's coffers go dry - and it accumulates weeks upon weeks of arrears.

Jules Vasquez
"Now it can be argued, man all you need is to show some patience - you know the municipal bond would be floated soon. You know that City Council will soon receive trade license in its revenue."

Anthony Griffith
"Well then come and talk to us, communicate to us - this is the problem."

Jules Vasquez
"It is what it is, there is no money to pay you and there will be money at the end of the month and you just have to wait."

Anthony Griffith
"Tell us officially."

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"I indicated to him in terms of our timeline - we are coming in our high season - people are starting to pay property taxes. When we hit the month of December, that's a high period for us - December, January, and February are our greatest income streams. I indicated this to him and he knows this because this is something that has been going on for years that the City Council always reconciles their balances with the sanitation contracts in the months December, January and February."

And it seems a communication breakdown is one of the central issues in this dispute:

Anthony Griffith
"We tried to call him and never responded. We'd be writing letters every week, he never responded to one. We have proof that they sign for letters that they received them but never responded to one. The main thing is communication - he doesn't communicate with us nor the City Administrator - none of them do."

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"I spoke to Mr. Griffith by phone last week. I made certain promises to him in terms of payment; he made certain promises to me in terms the non-interruption of sanitation. I don't know where this thing came up that the Mayor and the City Council are inaccessible."

But Griffith did speak to the Mayor on the fourth of November - where they reached an understanding, which oddly is now the source of so much misunderstanding:

Anthony Griffith
"When I spoke to the Mayor on the 14th - he told me what I wanted to hear - to get back to work, which we did and he made promises that he never intended to keep. It was 12 weeks he owed us for. He sent us a payment for two and half weeks which I showed you the cheque for. He made a promise to he, he spoke to me and said that he will inform the city administrator to double on the payment to us starting last week, but he never did."

Jules Vasquez
"He said that you made a commitment to pay 3 weeks, but he is saying that you promise that in the subsequent weeks you would double up."

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"Understanding one thing; I am not going to have a debate over this media or in person."

Jules Vasquez
"You are not going back and forth because you will lose on the facts. The facts are you didn't pay what you promise to pay and you didn't live up to your commitment going forward which is that you would double up."

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"If he says that and you believe that then that's fine."

Jules Vasquez
"So it's untrue?"

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"I am not going to say anything. I am going to say that I made certain commitments to him over the phone and we lived up to those commitments."

The disagreement seems to come down to 26 thousand dollars - a part payment - which the city had committed to pay. The cheque may have been made, but it was never collected - and now with the protest and strike it's been rescinded. Now, Waste Control says that is all it needs to move forward:

Anthony Griffith
"If they would just give us something like that half a week payment - that would help us tremendously in payroll. I can't work these guys for a week and they come to me Friday and I can't pay them."

Jules Vasquez
"Is this stage just embarrassed the Mayor in the week of his bond prospectus launch?"

Anthony Griffith
"Hell no. I try to get in touch with the Mayor over the weekend. I even call Joe his father to try and get in touch with him. Joe wasn't here Friday to try and get in touch with him to work out something. Try sit down and talk; this half payment that they have for us will really help tremendously."

But its money they don't seem likely to get right now since the city has adopted a hardline:

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"We consider their actions doing that constitute a material breach of contract and we are looking at this situation very seriously as it relates as to how we would respond to the action in not performing the terms of the contract."

And before the image of the city gets too bad, the council will have to pick up the garbage:

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"Yesterday we mobilized our crew in the north side of Belize City and they were able to collect 80% of the garbage. We are again mobilizing and they are going to finish the rest. We are also having our people going out today and we are mobilizing persons to ensure that they can pick up the garbage on the south side."

"We are going to ensure that we deal with this situation. We Waste Control doesn't want to pick up the garbage then we will pick up the garbage."

Tonight much of that garbage we showed has been picked up - but there is still plenty of residential garbage on the southside that is yet to be picked up.

And because the southside is larger than the northside - the council expects to collect less than the 80% it did on the northside yesterday.

The garbage collection effort by the council continues tomorrow - as does the protest, which we are told will resume in the morning.