Final section of Southern Highway funded by Kuwait

An agreement was signed today, which finalizes the completion of the last link in Belize’s basic highway system. The loan contract for the upgrading of section two of the Southern Highway was inked by Prime Minister Said Musa and Baden Al-Humaidhi of the Kuwait Fund For Arab Economic Development. The twelve million Belize Dollar deal will not pave all twenty-five miles between Big Falls and Bladen Bridge, but the funds will be sufficient to erect new bridges at Deep River and Golden Stream. These two areas flood periodically and as recently as two weeks ago high water cut off the Toledo District from road contact with the rest of Belize. Minister of Works Henry Canton, in an interview with the Government Press Office, gave details.

Henry Canton, Minister of Works

“What we are hoping to do by putting in the bridges first is coming to a phase system where once we tender the documents and they get a contractor, that we’ll have a phase one programme which will be bridges and probably a phase two which will be the rest, because there are three bridges also on the project. We’ll be completing those and upgrading the highway to a double asphalted upgraded highway”

Additional financing for the project will come from the OPEC Fund for International Development. The Southern Highway upgrading has been divided into five sections, two of which are currently being built by the Costa Rican firm Meco-Santa Fe and two by the Belizean company Cisco Construction.