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Marion Jones Indoor Facility Delayed
posted (August 16, 2017)

Faber also told us about the latest plans for the indoor facility at the Marion Jones Sporting Complex. Last night, the Mexicans flipped the switch on a new lighting grid for the football field. But that’s only a few hundred thousand dollars spent out of 5 million US which the Mexicans donated for an indoor sports facility.  It’s a multipurpose volleyball and basketball facility being administered by UNOPS - which means no local deal cutting and kickbacks with favored contractors.  But, still, something has gone awry because the UNOPS consultant last told us that the complex would be ready in February 2018, but construction hasn't even started yet! Â The Minister of Sports today told us that the date of completion has been pushed back:…

Hon. Patrick Faber - Minister of Sports
"We had some difficulty for the construction of a covered training facility that will not be at the federation approved level, the international federation level but will be there for the service of all Belizeans that are interested in this sporting discipline of basketball and volleyball. The ambassador Garcia Lopez who was here from the Mexican development cooperation initiative made it clear along with myself last night to the UNOPS people, UNOPS is an arm of the United Nations for Project executions, they were the ones who the Mexicans contracted to make sure that we get value for the 10 million dollars that they have invested in this initiative and so they are the ones who are over seeing, not the government of Belize and not the Sports Council; they are the ones overseeing the works that are to come under this initiative. Last night after the lighting ceremony the 2 ambassadors from Mexico and myself met with the UNOPS people and they shared with us a timeline for the completion of the rest of the project aside from the lighting and I'm pleased to announce that we're looking at an end of 2018 completion date, actually it is a bit longer than that, it may be the middle or so of January of 2019 but Belizeans can look forward to that facility."

We’ll have a little more from Faber later in the news.

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