7 News Belize

The Commonwealth And Local Government
posted (November 17, 2010)
Earlier on we spoke to the mayor about a looming garbage crisis in the city. We conducted the interview at a special meeting at city hall to host the secretary general of the commonwealth local government forum.

That's an international body with membership of cities throughout the commonwealth where the secretary general told us, wealth isn't common at all:…

Shane Williams, Guardian
"What is the role of the CLGF?"

Carl Wright, Secretary General - CLGF
"Very simple to strengthened local democracy and good governance at local government level which includes better provision of services to the community and our members which are the local governments and ministries of local governments, all the one which we try to empower to provide better services to the local community."

Shane Williams, Guardian
"How does the local government structure in Belize compare to others in the Commonwealth?"

Carl Wright, Secretary General - CLGF
"I think in many ways a lot of the structures are an advance, the fact that you have directly elected mayors, it's quite a progressive measure which many other countries don't as yet have, you have a very good system of local party democracy, very vibrant democracy and I think many countries are still consolidating those democratic structures, so in many ways Belize is ahead of the game."

Jules Vasquez "Please console us, or offer us some consolation, please tell us that the problems that for example our city council - Belize City Council faces with being perpetually underfunded, perpetually unable to meet the rising expectations of its citizenry. Please tell me those problems persist throughout the Commonwealth?"

Carl Wright, Secretary General - CLGF
"And in many countries they are much worse [Jules Vasquez - that's hard to imagine] well, you can believe it."

Jules Vasquez
"Have you driven down the streets, have you seen the garbage? The pot holes?"

Carl Wright, Secretary General - CLGF
"I've been to different parts of Belize, I've been to Belmopan and to Orange Walk, but I just came back from parts of Africa where I can show you the problems are much more serious than in Belize and it's a common problem that we have throughout the world and that's why local governments have such a key role because local government as was recognized by the United Nations recently is absolutely core to development, the Millennium Development Goals, the MDG."

Zeniada Moya-Flowers, Mayor of Belize City
"So we do have a Caribbean project, a Caribbean development project that will be approve shortly for the Caribbean region, it's a 23.3 million Canadian dollar project that we are hoping will be able to assist our Caribbean countries of course I will be pushing that Belize....."

Jules Vasquez
"Institutional strengthening or infrastructural support?"

Zeniada Moya-Flowers, Mayor of Belize City
"It's in whatever area we will need support in to ensure economic growth of our municipalities."

The funds Moya is talking about is 23 million Canadian dollars for institutional support - but that will have to be divvied up among many member countries.

Mayor Moya was elected chairman of the Forum by her peers from across the world.

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