CitCo makes partial payments to S.E.L. and B.M.L.

The controversy between the Belize City Council and its sanitation contractors might have reduced from boiling to simmer, but tonight one employee says he and his co-workers are being told to keep their mouths shut … or else.

Sydney Forbes, Sanitation Worker, S.E.L.
?They fire me over a shirt, over the S.E.L. shirt. Yes, now I tell them like this, I no put on the shirt, because the shirt wet and I had this other shirt weh dry. So I put on the shirt weh dry and deh tell me how I no longer have a job with them. S.E.L. dah wah nice place mams, dah wah nice company and wah nice sanitation company. But, the workers we did eh fraid fi come out and speak their mind mams. You can?t be fraid fi come speak you mind.?

Alyssa Noble, Reporting
?Are they afraid or you said that they had threatened them??

Sydney Forbes
?Deh fraid because they threatened them. They threatened them that if they demonstrate with B.M.L., they?re gonna fire them. Why will you threaten the workers fa if they are going to demonstrate. We are going to demonstrate fi we rights. We work haad everyday, you know, dah fi we money.?

According to S.E.L.’s managing director Rupert Marin, Forbes had walked off the job and his removal had nothing to do with the City Council situation.

In related news, Marin has confirmed to News Five that his company has received two checks this week totalling thirty five thousand dollars, an amount he says does not cover half of the week’s total expenses. Meanwhile, Lawrence Ellis from Belize Maintenance Limited says he has also gotten partial payment in the form of some nineteen thousand five hundred dollars. Ellis says the disbursement will allow him to send out a small clean up crew to work on the south side of the city over the weekend.