CitCo’s Revenue Stream Improves in 2022; But Residents Still Owe 30 Million

Bernard Wagner

And just in case you were wondering how Belize City’s revenue stream performed in 2022, well that trickle that existed during the COVID onslaught in 2020 and 2021 has improved significantly, according to Mayor Wagner. But he also said that there’s still a large sum outstanding from city residents and that the lax has resulted in the council not being able to carry out some of its work.

Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City

“Significant, big difference! When COVID hit us, our revenues fell from in the neighbourhood of twenty-eight, twenty-nine million (dollars) to roughly twenty-two million, so we were in the deficit between seven to five million in revenues that did not come in. We are still owed by the residents of the city over thirty million (dollars) and I will continue to harp on that. We want to continue to encourage residents, property owners, businesses, that we need these revenues to really drive the change you want to see on your streets, your infrastructure. And if we don’t collect, how will we be able to make some impact in terms of infrastructure. I know many of the streets in Belize City are in deplorable conditions. I will tell you straight up, we haven’t been able to do the number of streets we would want. First reason, we have had horrible weather. The weather has been brutal – this entire year we didn’t have any stretch of dry season, so that has really impeded our progress in that area. Hopefully, as we jumpstart into January, we’ll be able to get some measure of infrastructure done in the city.”