7 News Belize

Solid Waste In A Mess Since Missing Money, Who's To Blame?
posted (October 10, 2024)

And from municipal misgovernance to disarray at the Solid Waste Management Authority.

As we have reported, garbage has been piling up at the transfer station after the Director was sent home pending investigation for funds that were unaccounted for.

The garbage began piling up all over, and in Belize City, the waste at the transfer station was not picked up for a month.

The PM said that Minister Orlando Habet had to hire trucks in order to move the trash. He added though that the entire system and the design of the transfer stations needed remodeling.

In relation to the director, that matter is now with the police.

John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Again, we discussed that in Cabinet on Tuesday, I think that pretty soon the previous people that were managing there, all the information is being gathered and passed on to the police for the police to do a proper investigation and if there was any wrongdoing, these people will have to respond and again, I'm not casting aspersions, we just have to deal with the facts. So what are we doing? Well, what has happened is that Minister Habet, he got equipment to try to move the stuff. It was unfortunate that the company that had it did not have enough equipment or they got some and it broke down. Now I'm told, yesterday we were informed that they have managed to secure the necessary equipment to be able to do that but what Minister Habet did in the meantime, he hired other trucks, got it done, and I'm told he's going to deduct it from that contracts since they couldn't do that. That is one, or two, equipment, and that. Thirdly, we have to fix some of the design flaws. The one in Belize City, the ramp has broken in so I asked Minister Espat to ask MIDH to go in there to repair it. The fourth issue is again, when you offload, you go into a wall and then they compact it, well it seems that the wall is about 30 feet high so you do the first amount and then afterwards you can't get to the top and it spreads open. Again, we ask Minister Espat from MIDH to go in there and take a look to see how we can design it for it to be able to work for our purposes. It's unfortunate, I think there was a major flaw in the place it was positioned. These, the one for Belmopan and Dangriga and even Belize City, we put these transfer stations right on the highway so that whenever you pass, tourists or visitors or even ourselves, we see all this garbage just piling up. We should have taken it more to the back so that even if it piles up, we have enough time to be able to pick it up and fix it and get it out."

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