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Today, the Ministry of Works, represented by the CEO Errol Gentle signed 7 contracts with local contractors from the Lake Independence Division and another 15 from the Port Loyola Division to get started on works to build between 100-200 houses for first-time home owners in those 2 division.

It's part of the Southside Poverty Alleviation project being funded by the OPEC Fund for International Development, and this is the second phase of the project to provide housing and social assistance to needy residents of the city.

For Lake Independence, over $600,000 will be spent in this phase, and an additional $895,000 will be budgeted for housing in Port Loyola. Today, the Minister of Human Development and Social Transformation explained how the program will work:

Hon. Anthony "Boots" Martinez

"I am very happy for the people in my constituency. This programme allows us in the initial stages to create over 100 employments among the contractors. For us in Port Loyola we have a different style of doing thing; like for example, our housing group has existed from 1993, an NGO group. Most of the contractors are people affiliated with that group, we basically have a wood house factory at 3 and 3 quarter miles which we do excellent production. And I think I am happy for the residence; I can talk for Port Loyola who has been waiting for a time now to be recipients of their new house and home repairs. This project has helped my constituency; this project has helped the government of Belize to bring the housing stack up in Belize City. I think the first phase was excellent; this phase is going fairly well. And to me again I have to thank Mr. Puga and his team who worked diligently with us to make sure that we get all the approval that is necessary and make sure that this project is off a valid start."

For the construction of these houses over 100 jobs will be created, and these contractors were specifically chosen from skilled residents in these two constituencies. We spoke with Works Ministry CEO Errol Gentle who told us that 3 more Belize City constituencies will benefit from this phase of the project as well.