Mayor’s salary reverts to $6,000 a month
Last week Central Government bailed out the financially strapped Belize City Council by giving them almost a quarter million dollars. The funds came with a stern warning to get its house in order. Today the P.M. reported that he has met with the council and is satisfied that they are on the road to financial recovery… and it appears he is healing the rifts with Mayor Zenaida Moya following her decisive victory at the U.D.P. convention.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
“My fears as to the current financial position of the council and what is to happen going forward and in the next few months have been allayed. They did present me with a plan and I am satisfied that the right efforts , fruitful efforts, are going to be made to deal certainly with operational expenses for the next few months until the new financial year. Politically, there was one councillor who wasn’t present. Everybody else pledged to work together, everybody has pledged to support the Mayor and ultimately, I felt that the meeting was extremely useful and provided something of a breakthrough. On the question of the Mayor’s salary, it was agreed that the resolution of the council which had fixed the salary at six thousand dollars per month was and is a valid resolution and that is what must governed going forward. In terms of what the mayor has already received, it is my sense that the council agreed to accept that the mayor’s position is a genuinely held position. The mayor’s position, which is that there was a miscommunication and there was a misunderstanding because she had felt that the agreement was that her salary would not be less than what the previous Mayor was getting. In terms of the public policy issue, we await the findings and recommendations of the auditor general before we can finally sign off on this issue.”
That report should be completed in the next two to three months, which is apparently when the issue of whether Mayor Moya will have to pay back the ninety thousand dollars in overpayments. Now that the (quote) “miscommunication” has been cleared up, the Mayor’s salary henceforth will be six thousand dollars per month.
But in related news, the People’s United Party calls on Barrow to demand the return of the monies by the mayor. According to a P.U.P. release today, it expects the Ministry of Local Government to make the full report of their findings available to the public and further that the prime minister will take action to ensure full compliance with the findings of the audit.
