The Belize City Council and Belize Waste Control (BWC), one of the council’s sanitation providers, have been slugging it out in the Supreme Court of Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin over the council’s hundreds of thousands of dollars of arrears to the sanitation company. But when they returned to court on Friday, the two entities appeared to have worked out their differences to an acceptable degree to avoid further litigation for the time being.

Mayor Darrell Bradley told reporters, “I was able to inform the court that we were only two weeks outside of what we owe them and they are still pursuing litigation. I had impressed upon the court to consider the fact that by the terms of the contract, we can be 4 weeks in arrears and I want to make that very clear.”

“What we are saying is that as long as we are within this four-week period, and at the present moment we are two weeks, we are not to be sued and the case is to be discontinued. The judge gave time for Waste Control to file a statement of facts and issues because the judge wants to be satisfied with respect to what remaining try-able issues there are and we are to return to court on the 15th April for the judge to consider that and to consider whether or not the matter has been settled or whether or not the matter is to proceed forward,” explained the mayor.

Bradley emphasized, however, that the Council will again be in arrears due to the anticipated dip in the amounts it will collect as revenue, during the approaching “slow” months.

BWC is continuing with its lawsuit, however.