Eric Chang recalled as Deputy Mayor of Belize City

Eric Chang

Eric Chang has not been back to Belize since his name came up in the passport scandal that has been dogging the government. It has been a little over a month and a half since Chang departed for Taiwan along with a delegation from City Hall for the Asia Pacific City Summit. But he stayed behind in his homeland to visit with his family and since then, he asked Mayor Darrell Bradley to extend his time in Taiwan. Chang, according to our credible sources, attempted to visit with Wonhong Kim, the South Korean national who obtained Belizean nationality and citizenship while he was behind bars in a Taipei jail. Chang purportedly had a hand in the fraudulent Belizean passport issued to Kim. The scandal broke on September nineteenth and Chang has not responded to the allegation, nor does his boss, Mayor Bradley, know when he is returning to the country.  Chang is responsible for works in the city, but his prolonged visit prompted City Hall to take decisive action. Following a meeting of the Belize City Council earlier today, he was demoted from being second in command.  Replacing him as Deputy Mayor is B.Q. Pitts Junior.  According to Mayor Bradley, all efforts were made to have Chang return to Belize by last Friday.

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor

Darrell Bradley

“A week ago the council held a meeting and we decided that I was going to write councilor Chang and I was going to indicate to him that he was to return into the jurisdiction by a certain date. That date was last week Friday. Subsequent to my writing him, councilor Chang and I had a conversation and I raised with him the urgency of the situation. I told him that we needed our deputy mayor to be within jurisdiction. We are addressing this issue from two stand points. There is the issue with the immigration scandal with which of course we have certain questions as the council and I’m sure members of the media has questions as well that he no doubt be asked upon his return. Separate and aside from that, is the business of the council and in the interest of the council, we need to move on, we need to have a deputy mayor who is on the ground, who is functioning, who is able to assist with the many projects that we are doing in the city and contribute to the growth and success of this organization. He is not here. So I communicated this very clearly to him by telephone and in the written communication that I told him. I also indicated to him what are the consequences of him not returning. He could not indicate to me any specific date when he would return or when he planned on returning. His issue was that he had other concerns in relation to his family that he had to be away. And I responded that is fine and if I had a decision in choosing between my work and my family, my family would win all the time. But we who are in Belize and we who have public responsibilities, we have a duty to members of the public to ensure that we are moving forward as a city. We need a deputy mayor; we need that deputy mayor to be in this country. So as a consequence of him indicating that he could not come back by the deadline which we set and he could not give an indication when he would return, the council convened this morning, we met at ten o’clock and decided to elect somebody else as deputy mayor. Our law provides that we can do that; even before the year period, a deputy mayor serves one year, we need two-thirds of the votes of the members of the council to recall a deputy mayor. The votes to recall councilor Chang was unanimous and the council voted unanimously again to elect Bernard Quinton Pitts as the new deputy mayor for Belize City. Of course councilor Pitts is here; he has acted as deputy mayor before. You would have been aware that I was out of the jurisdiction with councilor Chang on visit to Taiwan in the early part of September. Councilor Pitts acted as deputy mayor; he gave the tenth day speech. He has always acted in a way that comports with the highest values in terms of ethics and integrity and I think that he would do an excellent job as deputy mayor.”