City councillors meet garbage companies over piling debt

The Belize Maintenance Limited protested on Monday over the lack of payment of a total of two point seven million in debts by the City Council. The company has laid off workers and finds itself in dire straits. B.M.L. and the other sanitation company, Belize Waste Control, met today in caucus with the City Council and it appears that an arrangement will be reached to resume full garbage collection.

Philip Willoughby, Councillor for Garbage
“Firstly, the sanitation companies will both be paid one full payment by the end of the week. We concluded that B.M.L. would appreciate being paid three hundred thousand dollars to get all its staff mobilized in order to be fully mobilized to operate. Waste control requested so many in the range of one hundred thousand dollars to set things straight and get mobilized likewise to service the city in terms of the contracts.”

Duane Moody
“You had a meeting with Mister Ellis, what evolved from that?”

Philip Willoughby
“He tabled his position in terms of settling the arbitration. We heard his position, the council will deliberate on the way forward and how we deal with the outstanding payments for ’09.”

Deon Leslie, Deputy Mayor of Belize
“At this moment, we believe both sanitation companies should receive a payment this week. We have talked, numbers have been thrown out and from there we will work our way forward. The council will meet again Thursday, then after that we can give you a better detailed update.”

Duane Moody
“Is everything expected to go back to order and by when?”

Philip Willoughby
“It is expected to go back to normal—this normalcy will be contingent by Friday with the first payment. That is the amount that is due and then from there we look forward to how we structure paying off the requested amount to get back things to normalcy.”

The council is expected to meet again on Thursday.