Taiwan Donates 2 Ambulances, Compactor Truck to City of Belmopan

Sister City relations were established between cities of Taipei and Belmopan back in 2019.  A request was later made by Mayor Khalid Belisle for assistance with a number of trucks, including fire trucks, ambulances and compactor trucks.  On Wednesday, a virtual handing over ceremony was held between Ambassador Remus Li-Kuo Chen of the Republic of China and Mayor Belisle. A total of six vehicles have been approved, but two ambulances and a compactor truck have since arrived in country. Though refurbished, the vehicles will help in the continued efforts to provide humanitarian and medical assistance across the country. Mayor Belisle explains how the vehicles will be distributed, with three others to arrive sometime next month.

Khalid Belisle

Khalid Belisle, Belmopan Mayor

“I had been recently approached by the Western Regional Hospital, asking how the council might be able to assist and since I have been at city hall, I have been dealing with the bush fires in and around the city year in and year out. And so even though medical services and fire fighting capacity isn’t within the remits of the Belmopan City Council, it doesn’t fall within what we are expected to perform and provide here in the city, I knew of the need of those two departments that benefit the general public here in the city. So I reached out to them and I said, well if there is any way that you guys can donate even refurbished vehicles to assist our regional hospital as well as the local fire department, that would help us tremendously. And then of course here at the council as the city continues to expand and we took time to increase our capacity to meet that expansion, we could use a compactor truck or two here for the council. It was a short time later that the folks here at the Taiwanese Embassy in Belize would get in touch with me to notify me that the city of Taipei and the government of Taiwan had agreed or decided to make this donation of several vehicles to us. And initially they stated to us that it would be two compactor trucks, two fire trucks and two ambulances that they would donate. We have to this date received the two ambulances and one of the compactor trucks; a bit of brotherly love and sharing has led to the decision to donate the second compactor truck to our sister municipality of San Pedro here in Belize. So San Pedro is going to get the second compactor trucks; Belmopan keeps one. And then yesterday you saw the handing over of both ambulances to the Ministry of Health. I am certain that at least one will remain here for the Western Regional Hospital and the Ministry of Health has that second one to deploy as they see fit. I believe the two fire trucks that we will be getting for the Belize Fire Department should be arriving sometime in the next month or two.”