7 News Belize

BIL: Mission Accomplished?
posted (November 10, 2017)
Last night we showed you the spanking new Punta Gorda Sports Complex. It's one of the last major projects that Belize Infrastructure Limited has spearheaded.

General Manager Christ Mastry says that they have all but fulfilled their mandate:

Christy Mastry, General Manager - BIL
"BIL's sporting mandate included basically the facilities that we've been opening over the past three to four years now really with the completion of the Belize city center we will have completed the mandate of Belize Infrastructure Limited, which was the initial portfolio of the sporting facilities and a package of 60 million,

"60 million Belize dollars to be spent throughout the country."

Of course, a major hole in the BIL matrix is in Benque Viejo where the death of the contractor has left that football stadium in the lurch.

BIL will now turns to the Lake Independence master plan - which includes the road and the other facilities including the Lake I resource center and the other 50 acres for a national bus terminal and possible a new ministry of finance building.

But, the public concern right now is for the Civic Center. Who's going to manage it? - Because it's been reported that it will be in private hands - which raises concerns for a publicly funded facility. The question is will private UDP insiders now swoop in to benefit from all these tens of million spent on the most expensive building in Belize's history:...

Christy Mastry, General Manager - BIL
"Although there's a lot of talk and concern that it's being handed over to a private facility, make no mistake that this is a public/private partnership. The government of Belize will stay in tuned with the amount of money, the facility's manager will be making, they will be in tune with how much usage it gets, for the sporting events that we want to insure can occur within that facility, and they will be very in tuned with the ability for that management company to maintain the facility at the standards that we handed over to them in."

"And so we anticipate that they will be able to generate enough revenue at minimum to cover those expenses and where there is profit, there is a profit sharing mechanism that goes back to the government, to be pumped into whether it's sports development or other private public partnership opportunities."

Mastry explains why the Civic cannot be publicly managed:

Christy Mastry, General Manager - BIL
"Where we are learning is also brings a lot of controversy in the private sector and the public eye is how these facilities are managed going forward, and we understand, and we have to acknowledge that some of the weaknesses of government is the ability to maintain large scale capital projects throughout the country. We see that. When you bring the private sector to the table, they think of these projects as a revenue possibility, they see it different, they see it from a business perspective - they want to maintain the standards at all times they wants to maintain the facilities at all times because there's revenue to be made. So where we are learning our lessons and we are moving forward is how to bring the private sector to successful partnerships to help us ensure the long term sustainability of these facilities."

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