7 News Belize

Supreme Court Interview Face Off: Mayor Bradley Vs. SC Courtenay
posted (April 1, 2014)
The heated, adversarial relationship between Belize Waste Control and the Belize City Council continues. As we've reported many times, every few months, City Hall falls behind in its payments to the Sanitation Company. The arrears pile up and it got to the point in December of last year, that the City owed the Waste Control almost 4 months in arrears.

And so, Waste Control took the City to Court. In February, Mayor Bradley told the media that the case was being withdrawn by Waste Control. But today it went back before Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin, who heard it in his chambers. The media waited outside of court, and we spoke with both sides. Interestingly enough, Mayor Bradley and Waste Control's attorney, Eamon Courtenay, entertained the press standing side by side. Courtenay listened intently - almost impassively - to the answers that the mayor was giving, and then stepped in and mauled him. Here's how that conversation went:

Mayor Darrell Bradley
"We just came out of court; we are supposed to go back in on Friday. I estimate by Friday we would be able to bring it within the 4 week period. It our position that under the terms of the contract we could lawfully be in arrears for 4 weeks. That itself means that we do owe 4 weeks but that does not constitute a breach of contract and so our position is that by Friday when we are this 4 week precedes then that would ameliorate some of the issue in terms of the litigation and we are making good faith efforts to try to see that we can maintain that 4 week period."

Eamon Courtenay
"I think the mayor is in a parallel universe. The mayor believes that he owes money and how will pay it when he wants. The mayor believe that everybody must wait until he is ready to pay. The only reason the mayor paid the amount that he had to pay was because he was threaten with incarceration. The situation is that once again the mayor is here telling the public of Belize City that he has a contract that he is arrears and that he is going` to be in arrears again and that Belize Waste Control (my client) must` just accept that. That is not the way the world turns. He has an obligation, he owes money and he must pay the money on time. The Chief Justice has told us to come back here on Friday with a definitive position. The impression I have is that the court itself is getting fed up with the Nancy story every time we come to court - as you just put to him every time is the same story. He is taking comfort in the arrogance of his incompetence and mal administration. He must pay his bills and pay them on time or there will be a consequence - it's very simple as far as we are concern."

Mike Rudon, Ch5
"Sir, the last time he was in court for the same thing, He told us that there was an indication from Belize Waste Control that they would drop the claim because of his good faith."

Eamon Courtenay
"Well, let me tell you the story. We stood up right here and reach an agreement with the mayor, walked in to the Chief Justice's Chambers and ask the chief justice permission to withdraw the claim based on a settlement agreed by the mayor. It took less than a week for the mayor to breach the settlement. Thank God, because I had confidence in his failure I did not file the notice of discontinuance."

As we've told you, there was significant goodwill on both sides in December when they settled the 2.3 million dollar arbitration award. Viewers may recall that in February of last year, Belize Waste Control initiated contempt proceedings before Justice Michelle Arana to have the Mayor cited and jailed for that arbitration award which has been ignored for more than 10 years.

On New Years' Eve, Bradley held a press conference to announce that the debt had been paid off, and that Waste Control had written off over 1 million dollars in interest fees so that the case could be settled. The manager of waste control told 7News in December that he felt that City Hall cheated them with that settlement because the Council failed to honour contractual promises it made to compensate the sanitation company for that write-off. His attorney, Eamon Courtenay, told the press today that they will be suing City Hall for breaching that write-off contract:

Eamon Courtenay
"The council is going to be served with another claim for breach of that agreement. There continues to be people picking up garbage around this city for recycling - breaching of the contract and this same year signed on a dotted line saying that he was go into stop it. This is the same mayor who said that he was going to stop other people picking up garbage in` hotspots and giving that` to Waste Control. He has not fulfilled that. We have instructions to commence another claim against the mayor for his continued breach. It seems to me that he is comfortable receiving litigation. We will have to do that and it seems that the only way he performs is when he is on the verge of imprisonment - regrettably that's where we are with him."

The case goes back before Chief Justice Benjamin on Friday.

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