Belmopan releases two-thirds of head tax funds to city

Once again the adage that “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” has proved true. In this case the squeaker was Belize City Mayor Zenaida Moya who complained to the press on Tuesday that two months worth of head tax money due to the council for April and May had not been delivered by central government. Sure enough, following the media reports, Belmopan has coughed up the cash … at least two-thirds of it. Ministry of Finance officials explained to us that a cheque for one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars was issued on Wednesday; an amount almost sixty-five thousand short of what was due. The explanation was that the city’s one U.S. dollar per visitor share of the cruise ship head tax is borne equally by the Belize Tourism Board, PACT, and the Fort Street Tourism Village. It seems that B.T.B. and PACT ponied up their share but the Village did not. Instead of forwarding the two-thirds of the funds collected to the city, the Ministry of Local Government, for some reason, decided to sit on the cash, waiting for Fort Street to pay. Up to news time, Tourism Village officials James Nisbet and Evelyn Deeks had not returned our phone calls requesting an explanation of the delay. Government’s decision to give Belize City the U.S. dollar per visitor instead of the B.T.B. making specific project grants was made in February following a sustained public campaign by the Mayor and Council.