Works on Dangriga marketplace to resume using monies for road works

In September 2013, the Dangriga Market, a significant part of the Municipal Development Plan, was brought to a screeching halt by the combination of an allegedly incompetent contractor and corruption at the Social Investment Fund. The building was abandoned not even close to completion, leaving Dangriga vendors and residents inconvenienced and hurting. Since then a brand new SIF, sans allegedly corrupt persons who were sacked, has been trying to pick up the pieces of the market. Today there is news that the project will resume, but what should be good news is overshadowed by a dismal financial reality. According to Dangriga Mayor Gilbert Swaso, the project can only be completed with funds which will be taken away from a budget for road-works in the municipality.

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Gilbert Swaso, Mayor, Dangriga Town

Gilbert Swaso

“The Dangriga Town Council was informed that the total cost now to complete the market project will be one point four million dollars. Simply put, the seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars which is still in the coffers, we will now have to find an additional four hundred and fifty thousand dollars to complete the market. You may also be aware that the Dangriga Town Council was allocated a one point five million dollars which is the phase two of the Belize Municipal development project which the people of Dangriga have selected that we paved one point two miles of street and they selected the Doctor Aranda Crescent, t e Gasby Ramos Road and the Trucking Boulevard. So essentially SIF mentioned that that four hundred and fifty dollars to complete the market will be subtracted from the one point five million allocated for road works to be placed at the market project.”

Mike Rudon

“Wait, SIF confirmed that they will be taking that money away from the one point five million?”

Gilbert Swaso

“Yes, SIF confirmed that. So that money will be taken out initially from the phase two Dangriga project. And they state that at the end of all the works throughout the country, if there is any money left, then Dangriga may be reallocated the additional money for the completion of the one point two miles that the people have Dangriga have selected to be paved. Essentially, the government of Belize continues to punish the people of Dangriga. It is double jeopardy because we have lost the market. The market will now take nine months to be completed with the earliest likely completion date of October 2014; and it might be all the way in November. Also note that that is also the rainy season. So while they are proposing, estimating that it would take up to October-November, the rainy season and the weather condition might determine otherwise. So a market which should have been finished in 2013, will now be finished in 2014; the earliest October-November. The vendors continue to lose twenty-five percent of their income. Our people, as you know the market is the heart and soul of the community, have been deprived of their market. So that ill-fated market will now take another nine months to be completed and we’ve been deprived of the needed infrastructure in the new site area. So that will be shortened because a minimum of four hundred thousand dollars will be subtracted from the one point five million dollars allocated for the street works. So that is injustice; that is punishment and the government way of demonstrating to us as the people of Dangriga that we do not matter.”