Mayor Bradley Has A Change of Heart on Workers Plight

Darrell Bradley

Those comments from the Prime Minister came at a press conference at the Belize Biltmore Plaza this afternoon. But shortly before that News Five spoke to a properly chastened and pensive Mayor Darrell Bradley. Twenty-four hours ago Bradley stood outside a courtroom, with workers at his back, and stated that they would all have to pay five hundred dollar littering tickets issued to them. He stated that once those tickets were issued, no politician could interfere. We are reliably informed that a politician did…in the manner of a call to Bradley from the PM. But Bradley’s story is that he was suddenly moved to compassion by the workers’ plight.

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor

“After reflecting a lot on this matter, I think that the workers ought not to be victims in these circumstances. I think that Audrey Matura said something yesterday on the news which spoke to me; that she said that when elephants fight that it is often times they trample on grass. And I thought that that was not a nice way to describe people, being trampled on. And when I saw the images last night on the news of people being incarcerated, I mean those thing…I am a human being and those things speak to me as a human being. And I think that in retrospect, things could have been different in the entire circumstance. This is not to say that persons have the right to be overly aggressive in their protest—I still think that there were issues there—but I ought not to think that the workers in these circumstances should be punished in a way that is unreasonable. And so for that reason, we took a decision to withdraw as it relates to that aspect of it that has to do with the City Council which is the issuance of the littering fines, which were these five hundred dollar tickets. All of that will be withdrawn.”

Reporter

“Sir, when this question was put to you yesterday, your position at the time was a complete no in relation to the tickets. You said that this is policy; that you don’t influence the retraction of such things because of politics. It seems to be a reversal of your position.”

Darrell Bradley

“Well, one of the things that I will say is that leadership can never be inflexible; leadership always has to bend and you have to be reflective on your individual conduct. One of the things that moved me as I had indicated is seeing the images of the people incarcerated. These are people who, for want of their jobs, were put in a very difficult situation. They have, and I said this on the media previously, that I can appreciate that they are fearful, I can appreciate that they are concerned about what is going to happen after January, I can appreciate and I take full responsibility for the fact that I am mayor and I haven’t paid BML for an extended period of time. That must put pressure on them to make them unable to pay their staff. As a result of that, there was a civil action that I think went above and beyond what it should have been and they broke the law in serious respects. But reflecting on the context of everything I think that we ought not to punish the workers. So if that shows as a reversal of a decision, that is a decision that we are prepared to say that we did reverse.”