7 News Belize

The Many Failings Of The Manhole Project
posted (May 26, 2017)
And a part of keeping those drains clean is getting into them. That's often impossible due to the poor quality of the drain hole covers which are either stuck in place, or broken and jammed in place. Now, there was a project launched a year ago to replace thousands of manhole and drain covers for three hundred thousand dollars, but it's been stalled. We raised the subject with the mayor three weeks ago and we did so again today when we were armed with more information of how badly the project was executed. The mayor conceded that there were shortfalls:...

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"Cheap doesn't necessarily get you value and so I think that in hind sight I would have done many things different in relation to that project. In terms of the amount of man holes that have been laid out in accordance with the project is about 40 percent and you have many of these man holes that would draw your attention to Freetown road, North Front Street, the critical areas - these man holes are still there. You can actually visit and see them, because there are a different colour than the side walk. I think that the position that we are at is that we will need to get somebody new to finish the work. There's a substantial amount of the monies that have not been disbursed. In relation to this, the city engineer identified certain problems that we had with the work quite early on. We can actually take a look, we can peruse through the reports and so forth so that you know exactly where we are for the benefit of public knowledge and public awareness, there's no hanky panky that goes on in any operation that I do. None."

Jules Vasquez, 7News
"But you don't oversee all the operations."

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City
"That's true, but I can say that with respect to this, no all projects or contracts at city hall are tendered, but with respect for this, we did a scope of work. We did a tender process, if I can recall there were about 7 bids. There was a selection in a relation to the contractor."

We'll follow up with the mayor to see those documents assessing the project.

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