Email

Print

Mitchell Danderson- Operations Manager
"As far as we are concern he didn't make any contact with Mr. Ellis, the manager of the company. He hasn't been in communication with the management any at all. We hope that the mayor will show some respect, some dignity and come and say Mr. Ellis, Mr. BML let us sit and talk but that hasn't happen over a year. Mr. Ellis has made different requests to meet with him and that has never happen."

Reporter
"What's the next step for the company if this doesn't work out?"

Mitchell Danderson- Operations Manager
"If this doesn't work out - the last thing I said is to send people home if the company cannot bear it anymore that is what we will have to do until the mayor sit and have a conversation with Mr. Ellis."

But when the mayor briefed the media at an impromptu press conference after this morning's demonstration, he said that he always communicates with BML, a company which he described as "bleeding the council dry":

And so - over the course of a 45 minute press conference - he said that the city council will pay when it can:

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"I am telling you that in much of the dispute and I will concede and accept this that the city council is at fault, we are at fault and I am the head of the city and I accept responsibility for the fact that BML has not been paid for a substantial period of time."

Reporter
"Which makes you "malpago.""

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"I am accepting that because as a leader that's what you do. It doesn't makes me feel good to tell anybody in the public that we have outstanding arrears for so long that's why I am working every single day to pay these people off - to find ways that we are going to pay these people off. Why must I pay $78,000 per week to chop in front of your yard? That is not public. What you can do and what you said and I appreciate your question, but we are doing a lot of analysis in terms of justifying and reprioritizing what do at city council to ensure that when we spend public funds we can say that we are spending public funds on what is considered public."

"One of the things that I want you to appreciate is when we look at the management of the city, there are different priorities, we are placing a significant amount of priorities streets, infrastructures, in upgrades to parks in other areas. A significant part of the attention, notwithstanding that we place a lot of priorities in those areas have been these sanitation contracts. The reality of that is just because these things are so significant in cost. It takes a lot out of us to pay a $78,000 bill per week together with a $51,000 bill per week together with salary payments of $189,000 every two weeks. That right there, those 3 things takes up about 80% of what the city council takes in. It's just too much."

"When you are dealing with things like sanitation, I have maintained that we could provide the city that service far cheaper. I do not believe that BML has 100 persons on the ground. I am not talking about supervisors, I am not talking about management, I am not talking about the owner; I am talking about the people who go on the ground picking up the garbage, cutting the grass."

Geovannie Brackett
"They say they have 170 workers."

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"They don't have a hundred people doing that on the ground. They don't have those people and they are not paying those people $200 a week. They don't make $200 a week. You need to take care of your own business just as how the mayor needs to take care of the city's business and analyze then from August now to January, what am I going to do knowing that this contract - I don't even know if BML has other, maybe they can stay - I don't know. That's their business, that's not my business. I have to worry about paying them. I have to worry about paying our staff. I have to worry about paying our streets. They have to then deal with their own employees - like that's their company."

Geovannie Brackett
"How can they pay their employees when you are not paying them?"

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"We are paying them and we are going to pay them."

Geovannie Brackett
"Do you have any intentions to speak with Mr. Ellis or management of BML?"

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"I've always spoken to them."

Geovannie Brackett
"He have said that its been months that you have spoken to him."

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"I've always spoken to them."

Geovannie Brackett
"When was the last time you've spoken to them?"

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"I can't remember."

Reporter
"Sir, can you say when it is that the council will be making another payment?"

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"I cannot say exactly. Those people, while I am sympathetic to them are not city council employees. You work for a company that has a contract with the Belize City Council. It's a tenure contract, that contract is coming to an end."

Geovannie Brackett
"There are littering penalties right now. I can't recall if one person has been arrested."

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"We've persecuted a lot of people on that. That's part of our strategy."

Geovannie Brackett
"If you can't currently enforce that legislation, how will you....?"

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"We are enforcing that legislation."

Geovannie Brackett
"Obviously I dint see it because when you go around...."

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"You don't go to court Geovannie."

Geovannie Brackett
"How many people? Give us a statistic?"

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"I am not the sanitation person, but every month I think that we persecute more than 30 people for that. I can't tell you if those persecutions are successful because that is handle by a certain department of this operation and I know that people write in. The fines for business is $2,000, for an individual its $500. Those are serious fines and we've persecuted offenses under that."

"All I am saying is that coming closer to the January 2015 deadline, I expect that there will be increase contentions and frustrations because you are going from ne system where you are paying and exorbitant amount of money to one supplier to a system where you don't have to do that, so I understand that the employees are concern. I would be concern likewise. I understand that the company is concern because they have been in a sense bleeding us for 10 years and now that that is coming to an end - that gravy train is coming to an end they are holding up their hands and saying what."

And while there are aspersions to the contrary, the mayor today publicly restated that when the contract lapses, the job of cleaning the city streets will revert to the city council.