Are Cemented City Streets Still Holding Up?

Oscar Arnold

One of the primary responsibilities of the City Council is streets, and although over one hundred and sixty were cemented under the previous U.D.P. administration, many are in dire need of remedial work. It is known that several contractors were granted contracts for different arteries, but a minimum standard appears not to have been achieved. Deputy Mayor Arnold says that in one instance, a street was cemented without consideration for drainage. At its own expense, the Council had to dig and resurface. So how does the council address this issue with the contractors going forward?

Oscar Arnold, Deputy Mayor, Belize City

“I yet have to see where the contractors guaranteed longevity. I think it was a councilor member who said that these streets should last about thirty years. There were some structural problems; there wasn’t or we haven’t been able to find where there was minimum standards that were given out to different contractors.  So what you find is that some streets are holding up very good while some other ones are deteriorating very fast and again that is because there were no minimum standards that were given to different contractors who got different streets. Under the previous council, I was made to understand that whenever a contract was issued, there was a portion that was held back. Those have been used to rehabilitate streets that were torn up even prior to us taking office. We are looking at the ones that are deteriorating and we are trying to do remedial work to get those to stop and not deteriorate any further.”

Arnold says that buses, delivery trucks and vehicles have also been damaging sidewalks, which were not built to withstand those loads. There were no budgets allocated for the repair and maintenance of these issues.