Mayor Darrell Bradley speaks on municipal bond for infrastructural upgrades
The City Council is inviting the business community to invest in a twenty million dollar bond. According to the Mayor Darrell Bradley, City Hall doesn’t have the money to spend on infrastructure so he is floating the bond to finance work on fifteen streets in the Old Capital. This morning the Mayor gave details about the bond issue. News Five’s Isani Cayetano reports.
Isani Cayetano, Reporting
The reconstruction of Queen Street, a transition from hot mix to concrete, is a hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollar infrastructure project. This is one of fourteen streets initially selected to be converted to pavement as part of the Belize City Council’s Street Works, a massive undertaking said to cost upwards of a million dollars. Upon completion Mayor Darrell Bradley is set to take on a more ambitious assignment, the concretization of an additional fifteen streets using a security issued by local government.
Darrell Bradley
Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor
“It’s an idea that’s in the Belize City Council manifesto that we wanted to finance a city council infrastructure program through a municipal bond. When we analyzed our budget six point seven percent of what we take in, six point seven percent of that seventeen million dollars is spent on infrastructure and that’s woefully inadequate given that the law places the major mandate on the city [council] as being the maintenance of city streets and drains. You could compare that to thirty percent that we spend on salary and the forty percent we spend on sanitation and so the only way that we could really commit ourselves to dealing with the infrastructure needs of Belize City was through being creative and we had discussed this idea from the very onset.”
Queen Street, among the busier thoroughfares in the Old Capital, is being rebuilt by M&M Engineering. It is one of six bids that the company won to construct new roads. The scale of the project, says Bradley, has workers toiling late into the night in order to meet their deadline.
Darrell Bradley
“All of those streets have been done either through our internal funds or with partnership with the business community or by refinancing some of our existing facilities. So we’ve been able to do fifteen streets, all but one of those streets are cemented. The only street that’s not cemented is Holy Emmanuel; this is the main street in the Gungulung area. That street is being asphalted and it’s double asphalted. We think that in that area it could sustain that and that street would last a long time but all the remaining streets have been cemented and we’ve been able to be aggressive and creative to be able to fund these through our internal operational funds.”
To carry out a secondary project which aims to restore up to fifty percent of all streets in Belize City, a twenty million dollar loan is required. City Hall is now looking to residents who are interested in purchasing bonds to invest in the scheme.
Darrell Bradley
“When we are meeting banks, financial institutions, companies, institutional investors, we are telling people invest in this bond program not because you are going to make money of it or it will give you a good rate of return. That’s just part of it but invest in the bond program because you are investing in the same streets that you drive on, your children drive on, your customers drive on and people in the city drive on. So this is a bond program that we are trying to say that we want Belizeans to invest in it.”
The idea, Bradley adds, is such that the subvention CitCo currently receives from central government will be paid directly to the Central Bank of Belize where investors can purchase bonds. Reporting for News Five, I am Isani Cayetano.
No matter how nicely you package it, Mayor Bradley is trying to use our children’s credit card to pay for things we can’t afford today.
I am so sick of politicians who cannot live within their means like the rest of us must do!
Here’s the only responsible way to govern: count your pennies, prioritise the public needs, and spend only what you have in current revenue. DON’T INCREASE OUR DEBT — it is already an anchor that will hold down prosperity in the Jewel for the next generation. Are you going for enslaving TWO generations?
Why should the people of Belize pay for he streets what are they doing with the money they collect from the country. They use it to I’ll their pockets and now want the people to pay again what a useless pm and gov. Thief thief thief get real . Worse pm and gov. In the history of his great country where is the supposed leader of the country in Miami beach while the po people the get raped robbed stabbed killed Guatemalans stealing our gold police doing their own thing ministers filling their pockets crime rampant where is the supposed leader resign barrow resign you are not and accet to the country you are a detriment.
Very bright idea. This is where the people will prove if they really want to work together as one.
Storm, what do YOU prefer, to walk and drive on streets filled with holes reminicent of lunar craters or, borrow the money to repair it so that the very children you seem to care so much about, have a beautiful and safe infracture to move about on?
Do you have any idea why Chetumal for example, is a beautiful modern city, which just 25 years ago was the way Belize City is today?
For your information, all major infractural developments are funded by loans, especially in poor underdeveloped countries like Belize, which is perfectly in order. What is unacceptable is when a country’s foreign debt is a Billion dollars and there is little or nothing to show for it.
Politics aside, I applaude Mr. Bradley for his bold initiative. Other leaders should take a page out of his book and effect meaningful change.
Make up your mind, Sir/ Madam, you cannot be complaining about the problem and at the same time..itching about practical solutions. You CAN NOT, have your cake and eat it too.
To the City Council of Belize: Fund raising! Need advice on how to do it? Ask a nearby school such as St. Mary’s, SCA, or Holy Redeemer. They’ve been doing that for decades and they are surviving.
Thank you @ Louisville Ky, I admire your wise comments. I agree with every single phrase you mentioned. This is one positive thing happening in our country, lets stand behind it, support it, encourage it! I personally have made many loans, as this is the way to go on. What Bradley intends to do is wonderful. And the way he is planning to do it, should have been practiced 10 years ago. But its not too late, finally some young bright minds of Belize are coming out and displaying and putting into effect their wise ideas!!
Keep up the good job Mr Bradley I applaude you for the excellent job you are doing in such a short span of mayorship. Well said Louisville. It takes a great leader with vision to see things that needs to be done and act on them, and such a leader is what Mr Bradley is. Keep up the job, we are all proud of you.
We want to know why fees are payable and to whom for the bond