Municipal Fair is Back on September Celebrations’ Calendar

The Municipal Fair is back on the list of events for the September Celebrations Calendar following a meeting between Deputy Prime Minister Patrick Faber and Belize City Mayor Bernard Wagner. On August fourteenth, CitCo announced that due to a cut of twenty percent in the subvention for the activities, the council was unable to organize the fair, which has annually followed the Citizens’ Parade on the Tenth of September.  According to Faber, the September Celebrations Committee, which he chairs, simply does not have the resources to provide the full budget to all municipalities for the various September activities. The matter came up during Cabinet this week and on Wednesday Faber met with Wagner; G.O.B. will pay two-thirds of the bill, while City Hall will front the rest. Today, a press conference was held at DPM’s office in Belize City where the good news was shared.

Patrick Faber

Patrick Faber, Chair, September Celebrations Committee

“The council announced that it will not be able to do the tenth bram. We felt that that was unfortunate and the mayor reached out to me and I decided that we ought to sit down indeed and try to work it out. I think the news of the cancelation of the tenth bram didn’t go over well with the Belize City residents especially; it is something that the residents have become accustomed to after being a part of the parade even if only on the sidelines. People want to go somewhere and do something in terms of the celebration after the parade and after the official ceremonies. So the mayor and I and the deputy mayor met in a brief meeting yesterday afternoon where we agreed that the council will go forward and that the Government of Belize will try to find the additional funds of ten thousand dollars to ensure that the bram is bigger than better than ever.”

Bernard Wagner

Bernard Wagner, Belize City Mayor

“To us that was the least evasive to cut. The other activities were intertwined in the entire tenth celebrations especially the open ceremonies, the tenth day ceremonies; we couldn’t at no time see how we could cut any of those events. So the bram, we thought would be the least evasive event to cut. It was never a matter of us not wanting to have the bram; it was always a financial matter and being about financial prudence. And so when the deputy prime minister told us listen, we will come up with the two-thirds and we will be able to cough up the one-third of the cost. And at the end of the day, the residents of the city benefit. And this display of leadership from both ends in my mind is the greater taken away out of this situation.”