At this point in time, Belize City Mayor Darrell Bradley is on the outside looking in at City Hall. He has not put his name down to run for a third term and it appears his run as chief municipal administrator may be over. The strain of getting along with eleven different personalities has been […]
Belize City voters will head to the polls on August twenty-seventh to elect the ten city councilors and one mayoral candidate to represent the United Democratic Party at next year’s municipal elections. The U.D.P. has won the Belize City Council four straight times since 2006. But their chances at a fifth term have gotten somewhat […]
Mayor Bradley is presently out of the country and city residents will have to wait until he gets back to hear his explanation. But one possible reason is that the tough-talking administrator is no stranger to taking hard stances against his party. Recently, he was among those who openly cried shame on members of the […]
Tourism Minister Manuel Heredia Junior and his colleague Rene Montero appear on Wednesday before the Senate Special Select Committee on Immigration. The Belize Rural South area representative is expected to be questioned about his role as a recommender for a particular family on Ambergris Caye, the Harmouch family. It is also known that he acted […]
On Wednesday afternoon, the People’s United Party in a statement strongly condemned what it called the contemptuous and disrespectful behavior displayed by Ministers Anthony “Boots’ Martinez and Edmond Castro during the Senate Special Select Committee earlier in the day. According to the Opposition, their behavior showed a complete lack of respect for the Senate and […]
Ministers Rene Montero and Manuel Heredia Jr. are headed to the inquiry next Wednesday. But will they follow the example set by their fellows this week, and is it possible that following from the disruption of May seventeenth propagated by Alberto August, the U.D.P. Cabinet has decided to show open contempt of the Senate Committee? […]
As to the testimony of the worth of a Minister’s recommendation for a visa application, which is not strictly required, it seems to be a case of taking the word of the various public officers who have testified openly to how Ministers of the current administration behaved against the Ministers’ own denial. Former Ministers of […]
Senior Counsel Michel Chebat, attorney-at-law, is standing in for the incumbent P.U.P. representative on the Senate Special Select Committee, Eamon Courtenay. Wednesday’s attacks on Chebat and Senator for the Business Community Mark Lizarraga by Minister Edmond Castro went even further. Castro openly mocked Chebat’s political pedigree and accused him of wrongdoing concerning use of public […]
This week, Senior Superintendent Marco Vidal has taken over the post of Regional Commander for Eastern Division South, replacing Assistant Commissioner Chester Williams. Vidal has publicly committed to continuing the community policing approach adopted by Williams, although he will leave the senior officer to continue mentoring gang members presently under a truce. Meanwhile, murders and […]
We caught up with leader of the People’s United Party John Briceño this afternoon on a walking tour of the Port Loyola constituency, flanked by the party’s standard bearer Gilroy Usher, Senior. Usher lost the 2015 general election to Anthony “Boots” Martinez by seventy-three votes, substantially reducing the margin from previous elections and surprising political […]
U.D.P. Ministers Anthony “Boots” Martinez and Edmond “Clear the Land” Castro appeared before the senate hearing on Wednesday. They are the first two sitting ministers to be questioned by senators in the ongoing immigration inquiry. While the report from the Auditor General is at the core of the hearing, whistleblower Alvarine Burgess has told the […]
Minister Martinez was defensive today telling the media this afternoon that he comported himself fairly well, given the nature of questions that were asked during his testimony. While his conduct is being described as obnoxious, the Port Loyola Area Representative insists that he was in line with the terms of reference that was before the […]
Martinez maintains that the questions posed to him were beyond the pale, and resulted in his terse responses. He also strongly believes that Burgess should never have been called before the committee, since her name does not appear in the auditor general’s special report. Anthony ‘Boots’ Martinez, Minister of Human Development “If you want […]
Has the senate inquiry run its course? Prior to calling several past and present ministers to testify before the Senate Special Select Committee, U.D.P. ministers have been singing the same chorus; that the inquiry on the Immigration Department has served its purpose and should be discontinued. The hearing has been disclosing information not known before […]
Earlier in this newscast, you heard from one of the two witnesses at Wednesday’s Senate hearings, Minister Anthony “Boots” Martinez, attempting to justify his behaviour. And while raising strong objection to the tone of questioning as we will show you later on, he mostly answered the questions put to him. The same cannot be said […]
Castro also bristled when the matter of his court case in 2013 against nemesis Alvarine Burgess was brought up by Senator Michel Chebat. Castro sued Burgess and this television station concerning interviews she granted about his role in the visa hustle. The minister refused to answer multiple questions concerning that case, including about how it […]
The recalcitrant Ministers were also pressed on their public commentary about the inquiry, its purposes and intentions, and the Prime Minister’s famous dictum that all Ministers should stop making visa recommendations – “procurement” as he put it – as that would cause the Government to fall. It was said at a press conference around the […]
In today’s appearances before the Senate Special Select Committee, both Ministers Martinez and Castro took strong objection to answering questions that they felt appeared outside of the scope of the inquiry, which they narrowly interpreted to be only the times their names appeared in the report. They especially recoiled, in Martinez’s case, from the mention […]
Wednesday’s Senate Special Select Committee public hearing in Belmopan is expected to turn up the heat on the Government of Belize. For the first time, sitting Ministers in Cabinet will be appearing before the Committee. In fact, one of the two scheduled witnesses, Minister Anthony “Boots” Martinez, was called to appear last week, but his […]
Friday’s appearance in the House of Representatives broke a personal streak for Orange Walk North area representative Gaspar Vega which dates back to August of 2016. He lost his powerful Ministry of Natural Resources and later Agriculture after a number of scandals involving sale and transfer of lands to his family members were revealed. Vega […]
Three years ago this week, the Cervantes family of Orange Walk Town was plunged into a personal and political nightmare. Personal, because of losing their patriarch, Ramon Cervantes Senior, to an alleged plot that left him battered and dead in a shallow grave along the Honey Camp Road. Political, because the absconded chief plotter Manuel […]
Corozal Southeast area representative Florencio Marin Junior rose on the House adjournment on Friday after colleague Julius Espat’s urgent plea regarding crime in his Cayo South. In Marin Junior’s constituency, police shot Richard Garcia dead in Chunox following an eviction attempt, leaving villagers riled up. Marin Junior contended that it can’t hurt to give police […]
Sergeant-At-Arms Brian “Yellow Man” Audinett was back at his post during Friday’s meeting of the House of Representatives, having avoided being fired after assaulting several journalists a few weeks ago during a Senate Special Select Committee public hearing. A majority of U.D.P. parliamentarians voted to spare Audinett, only reprimanding him and making him apologize to […]
Seven bills were brought back for second reading from the last session held on May twelfth. An eighth, the Trade Licensing Bill, was deferred to the next session. A new motion for a loan of just over a million Belize dollars to finance support for the Placencia Peninsula Wastewater Management Project was tabled and approved […]
The House of Representatives met in its final session before the mandated summer break and there was a lot to discuss. We’ll have all the highlights, but first, to the development bills. The Economic Development Council is now a creature of law, following an interesting debate in the House of Representatives. The Council is considered […]
