Bill to amend Municipal Act to go before the House

We reported earlier in this newscast on the Bills to increase business taxes that will be debated at Thursday’s sitting of the House. And there is another Bill before the House which will deal with amendments to the existing Municipal Acts. While the U.D.P controls all municipal bodies, the amendments, according to the P.U.P, seek to take away certain autonomy from the City and Town Councils. And it all has to do with the recent infighting at City Hall.

Mark Espat, Albert Area Rep
“They are the result of internal squabbles between the U.D.P. Central Government and specifically the U.D.P. Belize City Council as it relates to the deployment of resources. We don’t feel that that should result in rolling back decentralisation of power. At the end of the day, voters in consecutive elections and I believe the vast majority of Belizeans, believe that the municipal government should be independent from Central Government. So these specific amendments, which will give the Minister of Finance in this case, the U.D.P prime minister a veto in effect over the budgets and financial affairs of the municipal government, will really be retrograde, it is regressive, it takes us back twenty years to when municipal governments did not have this kind of authority.”

“The reason why we, as residents of Belize City and as residents of each of the nine municipalities, vote for our municipal government is supposed to be that they are responsible enough to be held to account. They should hold themselves to account, the law should hold them to account, the citizens should hold them to account. The Minister of Finance in Belmopan should not have the power to decide on the municipal budget. It may also be that the Prime Minister is preparing for what will happen when there will be P.U.P Municipal government come March of 2009 because for sure, the residence will understand how dangerous this measure is when you have a U.D.P Minister of Finance and a P.U.P. Belize City or Belmopan Town Council or Belize City or Belmopan council where the Minister of Finance will certainly seek to impose his will on the Municipal Government. That was the reason in the first place, for what we called decentralisation, giving power to the municipal governments.”