Orange Walk mayor haven’t been officially informed of works to be done in his municiplaity

Francis Fonseca

At a press briefing this afternoon, Mayor of Orange Walk Town Kevin Bernard said he and the Council haven’t even been officially informed of any works in that municipality. All three Mayors claim serious disrespect of their authority and responsibility, and joined by PUP Leader Francis Fonseca, are denouncing the actions by the government.

Francis Fonseca, PUP Leader

“In the case of Dangriga and P.G., Dangriga five hundred thousand dollars is being allocated for works, those monies are being spent through the government. The contract have been given to Cisco construction and in terms of employment, then percent of the work force will be employed through the town council and the remaining ninety percent will be employed by the U.D.P. caretaker, Mr. Frank “Papa’ Mena. In the case of Punta Gorda it is three hundred and fifty thousand dollars allocated to that municipality for the works and ten percent of the employment will come through the town council, ninety percent of the employment will come through Mr. Eden Martinez who was voted out of office in Toledo East in the last election.”

Kevin Bernard, Mayor, Orange Walk Town

Kevin Bernard

“The Orange Walk Town Council has not received any call or whatsoever form the Prime Minister. All we have is information being provided to us by the local ministry representative in Orange Walk but that is not official information, they are just saying that certain works will be done on the road. Other than the Prime Minster calling us, no, we have not received any official word from his office nor from the Ministry of Finance.”

Francis Fonseca

“These are the duly elected Mayors of those municipalities. If the government is serious about helping these municipalities then the Prime Minister should say I have funds available for Dangriga, I have these funds available for Punta Gorda, I have these funds available for Orange Walk and pass those as the normal process requires. Pass those through local government or through the Ministry of Finance directly and have them as they are elected to do determine what works need to be done. Why is there a need for this layer of U.D.P. to be put on top of these elected leaders to determine. They have to agree on what works should be done, they have to agree on who will get the contract, they have to agree on who will actually be employed; why is that necessary?”

While Bernard states that many streets in Orange Walk Town are in urgent need of repair, only the main street will allegedly be fixed. As we stated, all three complain that the monies allocated are woefully inadequate.