Boots says cemetery will come with time

Three weeks ago the Belize City Council announced its plans to open a new cemetery at mile thirteen on the Western Highway.  The need for a new burial site has been obvious for a few years now since space at the Lord’s Ridge cemetery has run out.  The proposed graveyard in the outskirts of Hattieville, however, is not exactly ready and when reporters were taken on a tour, the access road was under almost two feet of water at its deepest point and the area still needs clearing.  Well, today when we spoke with the Minister of Works, Anthony “Boots” Martinez, he said it will take a bit of work before the new cemetery will be ready and that it does not make sense to invest anymore on Lord’s Ridge.

Anthony “Boots” Martinez

“Cabinet has approved the sub-division for the new burial site and we are waiting to see actually how we can help the Belize City Council with the infrastructure.”

Marion Ali

“One of the problems there is the issue of flooding as we experienced.”

Anthony Martinez

“I think you could rightfully point out that you never see no drainage there.  And anywhere, I know care where you are at, once you don’t have proper drainage you will always have flooding.  That should be dealt with.  The Ministry of Works did help City Council with some landfill to reclaim some spots where there will be the final set of graves. We only helped with land filling so under the Belize City rejuvenation project we gave them about two hundred and odd loads of landfill to help them to get some more space. But that was not our involvement at no point in time, we always help the City Council and we always partner with them.”