Senate Discusses State of National Highways

The government of Belize conducted a successful campaign leading up to general elections based in large part on an infrastructural surge across the country. And it has continued, as today the Senate was asked to debate a loan motion for the rehabilitation of the Hummingbird Highway. That’s all well and good, but government has also been open to some criticism because many of the roads which have recently been upgraded and paved are already breaking up. Today the Opposition asked for some reassurance that any new infrastructural works would be properly supervised and properly done.

Patrick Andrews

Patrick Andrews, Senator, People’s United Party

“I want to our attention there part that we all drive on every time we come to Belmopan on Constitution Drive, particularly in front of Buca Gas Station, where we have borrowed millions of dollars and we have invested in infrastructure work, but we are not getting value for our money. When we go to Dangriga and we go to Orange Walk and we’ve seen projects that we’ve just spent millions of dollars in and it is already deteriorating. It is a point of concern and I would like for the leader of government business to see if there is not some type of evaluation that is being done of these contractors that are getting these contracts over and over.”

Macario Coy

Macario Coy, Senator, United Democratic Party

“I want to of course let him know that the people of Belize had spoken on the fourth of November and that they had brought back this government back into a third term and he is out there trying to say that we di do this or this thing di bruk or this thing noh di happen. He would have go back to those days Mister President, when he and his government were in government in 1998 – 2008 to actually say not even a pebble would have been put on those streets that he was actually mentioning just a few minutes ago Mister President.”

Lisa Shoman

Lisa Shoman, Senator, People’s United Party

“After we have constructed eight reinforced concrete new bridges with pedestrian sidewalks, we do not wish for it to be pointed out that there were no safeguards to ensure that contractors were paid, have been long gone, there’s holes in the concrete, the bridges aren’t performing up to specifications.”

Carla Barnett

Dr. Carla Barnett, Senator, United Democratic Party

“A lot of the road reconstruction that has had to take place over the last six to seven years reflect the fact that in the previous years, we had not been maintaining the road properly. And this is something that we have to be very cognizant of. In fact, in the period leading up to 2008—which is something that I am very familiar with because I was in the Ministry of Finance at the time—one of the heads of expenditure that we really saw reduce significantly in order to balance a budget was the expenditure on maintenance.”