Belize City Mayor Defends Infrastructure Project

The Mayor of Belize City can boast a total of about one hundred and thirty streets cemented and upgraded in what has been an unprecedented city infrastructure program. That makes residents happy, but the happiness doesn’t come with blinders. We say that because some of those newly cemented streets are already breaking apart, and it’s caused some concern and condemnation. On one section of Cemetery Road, for example, the cemented portion is no longer a cemented portion. It’s just bits of sand and gravel on the street. Now this isn’t about casting aspersions, but it also shouldn’t be about expecting residents to forsake quality for quantity. So once again, we asked the Mayor for answers.

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor

Darrell Bradley

“It is impossible to get a perfect pour on every pour of cement, so we will concede that there will be some deterioration in our infrastructure. What we ensure also is that we are doing PSI testing so that the strength of the cement reaches the contractual limit of five thousand PSI after twenty days. We are ensuring that we have a retention so for example there is a deterioration on Cemetery Road for example. We have pointed that out to the contractor. The contractor has already agreed to do the remedial works. We have done this on Freetown Road as well. I remember you had asked me about Freetown Road where there were problems with Freetown Road. We had three areas of it that had to be taken up. That was taken up. The contractor bore the full cost. There wasn’t any difficulty so that when you are doing an infrastructure like this you have to appreciate that yes you are going to build streets and ninety-five percent of them are going to be of the highest quality, but there is imperfection in some portions.”