City Council is bankrupt, Belmopan to the rescue

The campaign may be over, but the financial crisis at the City Council is beginning to haunt Mayor Zenaida Moya. And today Central Government jumped to the rescue of a bankrupt City Council and handed over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to meet payroll and sanitation services to ease the burden on the strained coffers of the Council. In the past two months, Belize Waste Control Workers took to the streets in protest against the Belize City Council for late payments while the Belize Maintenance Limited had to temporarily relieve a hundred plus workers because of untimely payments. Due to the turmoil over uncollected garbage in the City and the allegations of fiscal mismanagement, the Ministry of Finance wants CITCO to clean up its act and Belmopan was less than forgiving today. A stern release from the Office of the Prime Minister states that the council should “formulate a plan of action to address the Council’s chronic cash flow problem and to avoid resorting to the central government for emergency assistance.” And in case the City Council did not understand the memo, the Minister of Finance and the Financial Secretary will meet with the embattled councilors next week to discuss ways of making the council’s finances more self- sustainable. According to Mayor Moya late this evening in a telephone call, the reason for the cash flow crisis is that City residents are not paying property taxes but that this coming Tuesday, the Council will reveal its own plans to increase revenue which she said will not include taxes.