7 News Belize

The Continued Shouting Match Between Bradley And Schakron
posted (February 17, 2015)
Last night, we showed you the back and forth between the Belize City Mayoral Candidate, incumbent Darrell Bradley, and Aspirant Yolanda Schakron. The PUP's candidate was challenging the Mayor, and pressuring him to make further disclosures in relation to the audits of the last 3 years of his term in elected office.

As you saw, Mayor Bradley was intolerant of the criticism from the Opposition, and he summed it up as mere politicking from the other side, to try to create controversy where there is none. So, what did Schakron think of the mayor's flat out dismissal of her concerns as a politician? Well, we caught up with her at another event, and she discussed it with us:

Yolanda Schakron, PUP Mayoral Candidate - Belize City
"The personal attacks that he does against me doesn't move me. It doesn't bother me. The thing is that Darrell said a lot last night, but he did not answer the questions."

Courtney Weatherburne
"People might say why didn't you raise this issue before, two years ago going to the audit and analyze it as well as a concern citizen."

Yolanda Schakron, PUP Mayoral Candidate - Belize City
"Whatever they say, that's fine. I am a concern citizen, but now I have put myself to run as mayoral candidate. My responsibility is to find out after March 4th, if we are elected and which I believe we will be victorious, my responsibility now, is to know what I will encounter when I enter City Hall. So, it could have taken me two years, we still have the right to ask him and we are asking Darrell, just answer the questions."

Determined to keep the pressure going, Schakron and the Opposition released a statement this morning. It's says quote, "Of 3 audits, the 1st gave an adverse opinion, the other had no opinion and is missing and the 3 rd confirmed that the audit is done without knowing what the opinion of the previous one was. How can Mayor Bradley verify opening balances and ending balances if the audit before is missing?"

It continues, "Instead of addressing the issues of Transparency and Accountability, Mayor Bradley launches personal attacks on anyone who dares to question him."

But one of their questions for the mayor relates to the social contributions from the council. Again, the Opposition suggests that the amount is too high, but when the question was put to him yesterday, the Mayor told us no such mismanagement is happening.

Darrell Bradley, Mayor - Belize City
"This city council is doing a significant amount of project works. We had the painting of homes in the downtown area. We have gifted several institutions, at least 6 with science labs, computer labs. Most recently in Buttonwood Bay, we gifted them with computers and the newly renovated computer lab. Many of that social contribution line item, comes from people who we actually took on, on a part time basis. We've cured it with the new human resource regulations, so that when we are doing the infrastructure, a significant amount of this and this is going to be shown by the breakdown that I will give you before the close of the day today, that a significant amount of that is people who would take on part time to do additional street infrastructure which the city council was doing it self, so that all of that will be shown in the breakdown which you have every right to ask for and which it is my obligation to give you. I will point out this, that that information is already on our website."

Later on in the news, we'll have a little more of the back and forth from these two candidates.

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