Mayor Bradley Council will not renew contract with BML

Darrell Bradley

The Mayor says that rather than looking at arrears, the Council has to look at the big picture – which is that the city is paying far too much to sanitation companies. He insists that it is unsustainable. Still, payments to BML are supposed to commence within the next few weeks. But there’s still the matter of the two point five million owed to BML by the Council.

Reporter

“Are you looking at how that two point five million dollars will be addressed?”

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor

“BML? There are discussions in relation to how we can deal with that. The reality is that a lot of that cost is borne up by interest and penalties. I want to make very very clear that the Waste Control judgment is a judgment that has been existing for ten years. You have an entire period when not one cent was paid on that judgment – both BWC and BML. So that I inherited a situation where you have these judgment which have not been serviced for years, and when I say years I don’t mean one year I mean five years or ten years. So there are mounting interests that are accruing on that because the previous City Council did not deal with them. So all of this falls in our lap and we have to deal with them together with finding resources to build more streets. So what we are saying is be fair to us. We are prepared to deal with you like we have entered into an agreement with Waste Control, but give us a write-off. If you give us a write-off in relation to the interest payments then we can put together a proposal so that we can settle our judgment bill with you within a reasonable period of time…and a reasonable period of time will mean six months.”

News Five was unable to reach principals of BML for comment today, though we are told unofficially that the matter is being handled by attorneys at this point.