7 News Belize

Cayo CET Says UDP Chairman Alberto Wants to Quitar School Land
posted (May 6, 2014)
Tonight, the faculty, staff and student body the Center for Employment Training in San Ignacio are upset because a piece of their school land is being allocated for another public purpose.

They say that they've been maintaining it for years with hopes of getting a title for it, but now the Chairman of the Belize Water Services, Alberto August - who is also the Chairman of the UDP Party - is hoping to make use of it for the relocation of the San Ignacio Fire Department.

7News went to the Cayo District to speak to the Vice Chairman of the CET Cayo Board of Governors - who is also a prominent PUP in the town. Here's how he explained it:

Orlando "Landy" Espat - Vice-Chair, Board of Governors, CET Cayo
"It was never maintained by the sports council and we at CET we use to maintain it. It came to a point we heard that this was going to be given away to some private individual and we calculated that it was for speculation purposes, so what we did was to move the board and then we held a meeting with Honorable Francis Fonseca, he was the Minister of Education under the People's United Party government. And we put a case to him as to why we should get for CET - lease land of course. He sympathized with our caused and then studied the situation very thoroughly and he decided that he was going to Cabinet and recommend that it passes over to us. In fact this is what took place. We have documents to show that the transactions/applications were being done. We paid to survey this whole acre and integrated into the existing the 7 acres that we have and it was done. Since then we have been lobbying hard for government to give us the documents, pass it through the system at lands. Very unfortunately with the bureaucracy that exists we have not been able to do so. Finally now we understand that Mr. August was interested in getting an acre of land to build a fire station. I was in Canada when he held a meeting with the board and at that time the board had approved for him to get it, because he told the board I can get the 3 acres for you very quickly from the ministry of natural resources approved legally for you providing that you give us one acre."

"I was in Canada and the board I think moved a little bit pre-maturely, but it was not a majority vote. When I came back from Canada and I knew what was happening I call the chairman of the board and I held a meeting with everyone. I explained thoroughly the whole history of this place. When they knew the truth about this, they rescinded their votes. Now we had a majority on meeting now and the majority said we have to rescind our votes because we will not give this land away when I explained to them the importance of getting it."

"He still is adamant and we understand now that yesterday they were surveying the place. We had a meeting with the teachers. All teachers at CET are against it. The student body is against it. The community is against it. I call Mr. August personally and I said let me come and show you where you can get maybe 4-5 acres of land for the fire station, he has not done so. He is adamant he wants this place."

"We are asking publicly now to the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister to please intervene on CET's behalf. This is for educational purposes, this had nothing to do with who is red and who is blue and the institution is growing and we have plans that we are already drafting."

But as in everything, there are two sides to every story, and this evening, we spoke with Alberto August about why it has become so urgent to relocate of the Fire Station. Here's how he explained the ongoing negotiations between BWS, CET Cayo, and the Fire Department:

Alberto August - Chairman, BWSL Board
"This is a negotiation that has been going on for almost a year, if not over a year. The situation is that the Belize Water Services treatment plant in San Ignacio is almost 50 years old. It has overgrown its usefulness and the company is prepared to upgrade the water treatment facility for the benefit of the residence of San Ignacio/Santa Elena and even up ro Esperanza. For this purpose the company wants to install a million gallon tank complete with a modern treatment plant and a standby generator, so that in the event of a black out, electrical failure then it will not interrupt the water supply coming to its customers."

"The compound that the treatment plant presently sits on is too small to accommodate this kind of investment and this kind of infrastructure, so it was determine that the best option is to relocate the fire station from where it presently at because we cannot relocate the treatment plant because the water is pulled from the gallery down by the Macal River hauled up in the treatment plant for treatment and then later on for distribution unto the customer. The easiest option is to relocate the fire station. We started that process almost a year ago and the fire service will start to find alternative site for the new fire station and after several months they came up and they identified this piece of property behind the Center for Employment Training in San Ignacio. The reason why they identify it also is because if they could get a piece of that and then they open a gate, they would have access to the entire Victor Galvez Stadium for their training purposes. So when that initial location was determine by the fire service personnel I brought the information to the people at CET and I was invited to make a presentation to their board. During the presentation, it was found out that despite CET sitting on 5 acres of land they don't own any kind of legal document to the property. So it was suggested to them since its government land for them to pass one acre of the government land to the fire service for use and for the benefit of the entire community."

Daniel Ortiz
"So you are saying right now this entire compound that CET sits on is not theirs?"

Alberto August - Chairman, BWSL Board
"It's not theirs, they don't own any legal document to that property and the board agreed and it was discuss at Cabinet and the minister of natural resources agreed if they could give up a portion of their land the they could get title to the remaining 4 acres of the land and the board at that meeting were happy with it."

As you heard, the Vice Chair of CET Cayo's Board suggested that if the Government controlled Water Company really wanted to, it could have found another location for the Fire Station. We put that another other questions to August, and here's how he answered:

Alberto August - Chairman, BWSL Board
"We are talking about relocating a fire station. A fire station must be as close as possible to the populated area. You tell me where in this country do they have readily available government property within town limits. And when this suggestion was brought up, Mr. Espat himself came with that same argument to me, that there must be government elsewhere that we can used and I told him to go ahead and find it. But they he came with an offer to purchase land from someone outside of the limits of San Ignacio which is a no-hold. First of all we were not think about purchasing any land and secondly the fire station will never be located outside of the limits of the town - that's the bottom line because I think he was talking about property somewhere in the Bullet Tree Road. If a fire alarm is supposed to be started in San Ignacio, you know how long it's going to take that fire truck to get into the fire scene? So, that thing about purchasing other land, he brought that suggestion to me. This is government land, this is the fire station which is government entity, seeking to relocate on government's property - that is the bottom line."

Daniel Ortiz
"Now sir, you wear two hats; one as the chair of the BWSL and one as the chair of the part that is now in government. Sir, isn't it an arguable fact that those in opposition of the acquisition of this piece of property for the relocation instead of educational purposes will hurt your party, you are trying to beat Joseph Mahmud in the next election."

Alberto August - Chairman, BWSL Board
"Nothing is written in stone, but the people of San Ignacio and Santa Elena are intelligent people. That property has been sitting there for years. We are talking about one fifth, a small piece of the land - while they are waiting to develop that property, must BWS continue to give every single customer in this area substandard quality of water."

Daniel Ortiz
"Again, you wear both hats and sinister motives have suggested that this is land grab. How do you respond to those who believe that you are acting in your capacity as party chairman to acquire a piece of land for private purposes?"

Alberto August - Chairman, BWSL Board
"Grabbing land for who? Government is using a piece of land for government's use? How does the land grab come into this? Who is grabbing land for who? All the government is doing is relocating a government entity. the fire station of this community unto a piece of its own property and how does the land grab - Alberto August is not using any piece of CET's compound for its personal use - that compound is a government compound that CET does not hold any kind of document to."

According to August, as long as there is another piece of government land that they can identify to place the fire station, the piece of land behind the CET Cayo will not have to be used. So, far the search has not been successful.

Home | Archives | Downloads/Podcasts | Advertise | Contact Us

7 News Belize