It’s no secret that the cost of living has increased over the years – the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as soaring fuel prices, have triggered a price hike on almost all commodities. Fish and other seafood products are no different, but during Easter time, the cost for your favourite fish goes up […]
Mayor Bernard Wagner has served as mayor for a full term and is currently serving his second. He has been commended for keeping the City Council’s finances out of the red, but criticized for wanting to charge city residents a garbage collection tax. As municipal elections are scheduled for next year, the question arises: Will […]
And Wagner was re-elected as President of the Mayors’ Association, an advocacy group comprising of all mayors. They have been discussing hot-button topics on ways to increase revenues. Among them is one that Belize City residents have scoffed at – a garbage collection tax. But Wagner says that one is on the back burner, at […]
At the beginning of March, Mayor Wagner had told the media that the Belize City Council was prepared to rethink the installation of parking meters in front of Digi Park, a family-oriented facility. He had reasoned that the meters were installed to deter employees of the nearby call centers from taking up that section of […]
As the Sinach concert kicks off at this hour at the Digi Park, the traffic in that area will be controlled by the City Council’s traffic wardens to ensure that there’s no bottleneck to affect motorists trying to make their way to the concert or to another part of the city through that area. Mayor […]
In 2021, Taiwan initiated the Women Empowerment Project – an initiative that seeks to place women in better positions to become entrepreneurs and self-reliant. Today, before she departed Belize after a state visit, the President of the Republic of China Taiwan, Doctor Tsai Ing-Wen took part in a ceremony for a women empowerment exhibition. It […]
International Women’s Month may have concluded on March thirty-first, but on the heels of our Kolcha Tuesday episode that featured Belizean women in business, we bring you the following story of thirty-one-year-old Monique Lamb. She is the first woman to captain the Aggressor III, a dive yacht that is popular with visitors from around the […]
The premiums on motor vehicle insurance have registered an increase. The Organization of Insurance Companies, ORINCO, convened several meetings earlier in the year to evaluate the performance of the insurance industry in Belize. Their studies found that the industry is operating at a loss of approximately four million dollars. As a result, ORINCO found it […]
Andrew Roe further explained what the most basic motor vehicle insurance package covers and why it is not sustainable to have that customer paying a one hundred dollar premium on the service provided. According to Roe, while companies have been increasing their motor vehicle insurance premiums since the onset of COVID19, those increases were only […]
A six-year-old student of Unity Presbyterian School in the Antelope Street Extension area of Belize City lost his life on Saturday morning when he was knocked down and killed just a stone’s throw away from his house. Initial reports were that Armando Godoy was heading to a shop across the street from where he lived […]
He was a football athlete with Georgeville FC, but on Saturday night, Adrian Usher also lost his life in a traffic accident on the George Price Highway in the area of Central Farm. Usher was riding his motorcycle when he collided head-on with a pickup truck, driven by William Swan. The incident occurred around seven-thirty […]
The discussion around price gouging involving local Chinese business owners became more prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the Briceño Administration steers the ship of economic rebound, Belizeans across the country have been bitterly complaining about the increased cost of goods at the stores. The blame, for the most part, has been placed on the […]
Another commodity that has seen a recent increase is poultry. Viewers might have taken note that the price of poultry increased by ten cents earlier this week. As a result, some of the popular fast food restaurants have already increased their prices to reflect this change. We asked Minister Mai about this latest increase. Here […]
During last week’s budget debate, Albert Area Representative Tracy Panton questioned the budget in terms of the allocation for medical supplies and medication to the Ministry of Health and Wellness. According to the draft estimates of revenue and expenditure for 2023/2024, medicine and technology for last fiscal year were over twenty-five million dollars, but the […]
The Forest Department is not yet allowing the importation of ostriches into Belize until it can come to a categorization on whether the flightless bird is wildlife or poultry, but that has not stopped one businesswoman from carrying on with one of her dreams – opening a restaurant and serving ostrich as one of the […]
The results of the latest population census are expected to be released later this year. The exercise which concluded in January is being finalized before the official figures, following the national count, are published by the Statistical Institute of Belize. Diana Castillo-Trejo is the Acting Director General at S.I.B. Diana Castillo-Trejo, Acting Director General, […]
Cabinet, during its weekly meeting on Tuesday, has decided that Belize will cite Article 226 (A) of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas which will allow Minister of Immigration Eamon Courtenay to immediately impose a visa requirement for Haitians wishing to travel to Belize. It will also require Jamaican nationals to provide evidence of fully paid […]
As we reported last week, Belize Sugar Industries Limited saw its Fairtrade certification suspended following an audit back in January that flagged the millers for noncompliance. According to a release from B.S.I., the major noncompliance related to a change in classification of B.S.I. in the FLOCERT System. The other technicalities have been addressed and B.S.I. […]
The winner will be determined on convention day which is set for Sunday, April second. Both Haylock and Williams are gearing up their respective machineries to get as many voters out to Saint John’s Anglican School where the convention will take place. Confidence is high for both candidates, but are Williams and Haylock underestimating each […]
The 2023-2024 National Budget was debated in the Senate today. The fiery exchange across the aisle, that is par for the course in the upper house, was noticeably subdued. In fact, while the opposition and other senators pointed out the areas of the budget that concerned them, the presentations were respectful. Before the actual debate […]
Leader of Government Business, Eamon Courtenay, during his response, pointed to the figures coming out of the Statistical Institute of Belize. Courtenay highlighted the numbers that showed that the economy rebounded well last year, the employment rate which increased significantly, as well as the increase in minimum wage. Courtenay also mentioned that shortly the government […]
At the close of her presentation in the Senate, U.D.P Senator, Sheena Pitts conceded that there are some good aspects to the budget, but one of those is not the investment in the judiciary. The senator criticized the government for not allocating more resources to that service. Sheena Pitts, Senator, U.D.P “In the Judiciary, […]
U.D.P Senator, Orson Elrington, who took a bag of food items to the Senate with him, used the prices on those items to underscore the point that inflation is the order of the day. Elrington suggested that in the last year, inflation has almost doubled. During his presentation, he produced several items from a market bag […]
This morning, the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in commemorating International Women’s Month, recognized past presidents of the private sector organization who are women. Coffee and Conversations, as the event was billed, was an opportunity for women in entrepreneurship to acknowledge and celebrate their accomplishments. Kim Aikman is the Chief Executive Officer for B.C.C.I. […]
In tonight’s episode of Kolcha Tuesday, we look at the Yurumein Project. Yurumein is the Garifuna word for Saint Vincent, the birthplace of Garifuna people and culture, and the project seeks to keep the intangible cultural heritage alive by promoting the language and music across Garifuna communities in Central America and the Caribbean regions. Today, […]
