Councillors demand Mayor to pay back 90 grand …

The political fortunes of Mayor Zenaida Moya are quickly sinking as the day of reckoning is set for Sunday at the City Center. There is a new development today in the issue of the mayor’s exorbitant salary and allowances. A meeting was convened today by councillors who have publicly come out against her and who are now putting the nail in her coffin. The mayor was invited but did not participate and the councillors voted that Moya’s monthly payment of an additional three thousand dollars was not approved by them as claimed by the mayor earlier this week. The councillors are demanding that Moya repay some ninety thousand dollars which was accrued over a period of time. To bolster their case, the councillors invited Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Local Government, Marion McNab, who told News Five that the Audit Department is conducting its own investigation.

Marion McNab, C.E.O., Ministry of Local Government
“At the first meeting of the City Council which was held on seventeenth March, 2006, minutes of that meeting were made available to the ministry. Those minutes show where the council had made a decision with regards to stipends and allowances for the mayor and all city councillors. Those minutes reveal that the salary approved to the mayor should have been six thousand dollars per month and it also reveals the salary of the deputy mayor and other councillors. Somewhere along the way an additional three thousand dollars per month was being received by the mayor and that was the issue that was brought to our attention.”

Marion Ali
“And that doesn’t fall under stipend and/or allowances?”

Marion McNab
“No, that comes under the heading of “salary” but it was the six thousand dollars that approved by the council that was “stipend/allowances”. So it’s the official stipend of the mayor plus allowances; telephone allowances etcetera that came up to a total of six thousand dollars per month and that is what was approved. Somewhere along the way the pay sheet started to show an additional what is called “salary” of three thousand dollars per month and that is what was brought into question. And so myself along with Eugene Palacio asked the councillors to meet with us this morning, including the mayor, but she declined along with Mr Wayne Usher to attend the meeting and so we attended the meeting with the other councillors. What we simply asked the councillors to do, Marion, was to revisit their decision with regards to stipends, allowances, etcetera and to ascertain where approval was given for the additional three thousand dollars per month. That was our sole request to them. We were called back into the meeting to be apprised with the decision of the council and at that time we were told that the council members unanimously resolved that the additional three thousand dollars per month being received by the mayor was not approved by the council and as such payment of that additional three thousand dollars per month were to seize immediately. That was one decision of that meeting. The second decision was that all excess unauthorized payments made to the mayor were to be returned to the council on behalf of the citizens of Belize City and the Council. So that was the second decision by that meeting this morning.”

Marion Ali
“Is there anyway that the audit being conducted can result in a different outcome?”

No, because these are what were recovered; these documents are what were recovered at the City Council. We have copies of the minutes of seventeenth March, 2006 were found and up to dat no other document has been found where a decision has been made for additional payments of stipends or salaries or any payment of that nature.”

According to McNab, the additional payment of three thousand dollars a month to Moya dates back to shortly after she took office in 2006.