7 News Belize

SIF: Starting All Over Again At Griga Market
posted (April 2, 2014)

By now, even the casual news watcher will know all about the fiasco at the Dangriga Town Market.  The project is 9 months behind schedule and about halfway to completion.  It's been stalled for the last 7 months – and has become an eyesore in the town.  And that's where the Social Investment Fund comes in.  The corruption allegations over the last project saw the forced resignation of their executive director and three senior staffers.  But, still SIF has got to carry the project forward – it's a major part of a much larger municipal development project all across the country.  So today, it was back to Dangriga where a new contractor has been named, and a new budget assigned. But is this new deal going to see the job through? 7News was there to ask the tough questions:

Jules Vasquez Reporting

In Dangriga, the word SIF is like a curse word, the reputation of the institution perhaps indelibly linked to corruption and for evidence of that its critics need only point to the market - it should have been opened 9 months ago - and here it is still an unoccupied half completed shell.  But now, SIF is hoping to put this embarrassment behind it with the appointment of a new contractor CB Construction, as in Cesar Bedran construction who arrived at the market today and gave a commitment to finish it in 6 months.

Cesar Bedran - CB Construction
"It's a project that we will complete within 6 months, and hopefully, it's before the 6 months. I'm also looking forward to hiring people from the area, from Dangriga."

Ernest Raymond - Project Coordinator
"The Completion of the work on the Dangriga Market beings now."

Jules Vasquez
"How do you feel about embarking on this new stage of a project to try and redeem SIF's name?"




William Lamb Jr. - Executive Director, SIF
"I believe I am excited."

Jules Vasquez
"What stringencies or safeguards will be in place to make sure that we don't end up with a contractor who goes off the rails, or who loses control of the project as did the last one?"

William Lamb Jr.
"That would be with tight monitoring, and close supervision."

Jules Vasquez
"Will there be lessons learnt from that? Is there the acceptance that, 'Guys, we messed up, and we can't afford to mess up again.' Is there that recognition? I ask because I have this sense that SIF still has this sense of institutional pride - which obviously, you've seen the sign - it's not shared by this community."

William Lamb Jr.
"The sign says and speaks to what has been done before, and with what we are going into, and the result at the end of the project, we definitely will hope to see a different sign."

And that will take what the diplomats might call confidence building. Nowhere is that more needed than in the current temporary market where rancorous sentiments are common:

Eliott Antonio - "Okro Man"
"It's just like a skeleton on a dead person. For years and years, we're waiting for the market to finish, and nothing is done. Everything is propaganda."

Elias Vasquez - Vendor
"We lose a lot of customers because it's too far, you know. The project, the new market is not done yet. I don't know what happened."

Cordelia Kweli - Shopper
"When it rains, the vendors can't sell all of their stuff. It gets wet, so it's like, to me, it's really inconvenient for them."

Jules Vasquez
"Being over here in this temporary market, do you all lose money?"

Eliott Antonio
"We're getting poorer and poorer, no investment because all the vendors are on the main, and then everybody go and buy on the main. Here, we're in the red, that's the word. We're in the red; we're not making money."

Gilbert Swaso - Mayor, Dangriga Town
"We have seen in our financials, even from collecting from the vendors, that here is at least a minimum of 25% that is lost from our collection."

Jules Vasquez
"SIF will oversee it and make sure that it doesn't go wrong this time. Do you believe SIF, Social Investment Fund?"

Eliott Antonio
"I don't believe until when I see the bird flying. I don't believe what they're saying until I see the bird flying. That means that the roof is on."

And to get the roof on and everything else finished will take 1.2 million dollars.  That means the price of the project has ballooned: the previous contractor Kennard Smart was paid 800 thousand dollars for his abortive attempt at what was then a 1.4 million dollar project, leaving 600 thousand available for completion.  That now has to be topped up to 1.2 million to finish it all, meaning that the market which was supposed to cost 1.4 million dollars will now cost two million dollars - which will be taken out of the second tranche of Dangriga Community development Project.

Ernest Raymond - Project Coordinator
"As it relates to the Dangriga allocation, yes, there will be an issue there, in the sense that we would have spent $400,000 of the Dangriga allocation to complete this market."

Jules Vasquez
"Will that be taken out of the second tranche, set aside for municipal development in Dangriga?"

Ernest Raymond
"At the face of it, and as it relates to Dangriga, it would appear so."

Jules Vasquez
"But there is a fair chance, no certainty, but a fair chance that the Dangriga residents are the ones who may end up being shortchanged for the misadventure with Mr. Smart."

Ernest Raymond
"That is yet to be seen."

Gilbert Swazo - Mayor, Dangriga Town
"So, we've lost out on our market, still has not been completed, now, we'll also lose some street in the first instance."

Jules Vasquez
"It is always said that corruption is a tax on the poor."

Ernest Raymond
"No, no, on this case, the failure of the contractor to complete the works, and the monies we have spent has nothing to do with corruption. As a matter of fact, this a statement I would like to correct. There is the view that there was corruption in SIF. There is no corruption as it relates to this Dangriga Market, the monies that were allocated to it, and the monies that were spent. There was no corruption"

Jules Vasquez
"Sir, but Mr. Smart so alleged, and the Contractor General - Mr. Smart alleged that he had to pay inducements to senior members of SIF Staff."

Ernest Raymond
"That is separate from his contract, the performance on his contract, our monitoring, that is a separate issue."

Jules Vasquez
"Sir, my problem continues to be that SIF continues to think so much of itself, but you guy have been publicly shamed. They've cleaned out your executive director. 4 people were sent home. SIF is an institution that has been publicly compromised."

Ernest Raymond
"No, no, no, we need to separate the issues.

Jules Vasquez
"The Director was forced to resign. Go ahead."

Ernest Raymond
"I won't comment on that."

Jules Vasquez
"But, I'm saying sir, that you all continue to hold yourself to a high standard - and I am glad that you do - but SIF, in the public eye, is not a blue chip institution anymore. It's not, and you all continue to say, 'Well SIF is overseeing it, so that's enough.' It is not enough because people don't think SIF institutionally capable of reining in a rogue contractor."

Ernest Raymond
"We have to separate the issue of the contractor's performance, okay, vis-à-vis, SIF's supervision of that contract, and in that regard, we remain confident that that contractor was supervised in the appropriate manner. In the end, we saw that he was unable to complete the contract, and it was terminated."

Of course, that tidy executive summary belies the tumult that has played out in this town:

Gilbert Swazo
"207 days that this project has remained on a stand still. Those are 207 days that our community was, in my view, demoralized and punished because the heart and soul - the market is the heart and soul of any community - we do not have our market. So, we were expecting that a project which started May of 2012, should have been finished by July of 2013."

Now, all the mayor can do is express cautious optimism that this time around they'll get it right:

Gilbert Swazo
"We have to be cautiously optimistic as it relates to this project."

Ernest Raymond
"And it's for us, as the project implementation unit, to monitor that first and foremost, quality work is provided, and secondly, that he meets it within the timeframe." 

The refurbished market will provide over 40 stalls. It is one of the largest infrastructure projects under the Government's $30 million Belize Municipal Development Project.

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