The second Belize City Council administration of Mayor Zenaida Moya is facing its first financial crisis since being elected in March of this year.
On Tuesday, June 23, Supreme Court marshals went to the Council’s North Front Street office and presented them with a copy of a “REQUEST FOR ISSUE OF WRIT OF EXECUTION.” The court marshals then began to mark off some of the assets of the Council for possible crow-footing to satisfy a very outstanding debt that the Council had been ignoring for three and a half years now.
Sanitation Enterprise Limited (SEL), the now defunct sanitation company that sold its contract to Belize Maintenance Limited (BML), took the Council to the Supreme Court on May 29, 2009, for an outstanding debt that the Council owes to SEL. By the Council’s own admission, they are indebted to SEL to the tune of $1,776,016.35.
But that is not the end of the financial woes for the BCC. Because the Council was delinquent in its payment to SEL, that company racked up a massive bill with the Social Security Board. The Social Security Board wants the BCC to pay off SEL’s bill with them. That bill now stands in excess of three hundred thousand dollars.
In the Supreme Court action that SEL brought against the BCC, they wanted the Central Government to pay the BCC’s subvention to them to satisfy the debt. But Supreme Court Justice Minnet Hafiz-Bertram did not rule in favor of paying SEL with the Council’s subvention.
The debt, however, is still an inescapable reality for the Council to deal with.
In an interview this morning, Mayor Zenaida Moya told Amandala that, “No items had been crow-footed. Persons on behalf of SEL came in and marked off particular assets of Belize City Council. Most of it is arrears from the previous PUP City Council.”
Moya claims that they have done research and found out that SEL owes Central Government quite a substantial amount of money for sales tax. The figure that she quoted is something in the region of six million dollars. Apart from that, they are also indebted to the City Council for trade license fees, she said.
In a late press release this evening, the Council commented on its difficulties. “The Court ordered that the subvention cannot be withheld under the Crown Proceeding Act; however, the Council should ‘in the interest of justice, within a reasonable time, not being later than six weeks prepare a schedule of payments and forward same to the Claimant.’”
The Council’s release stated that the six-week time period would be up on July 10, 2009, and that “the Council is pursuing the matter with Central Government, who will be working with the Council to settle the matter.”
“The actions of SEL in terms of the deploying of marshals is seen as malicious and unnecessary, in view of the fact that July 10, 2009 is the deadline for submission of the schedule of payments and that date has not elapsed”, the release continued, saying that “the Council, therefore, informs the public and residents of Belize City that they are working closely with the Council’s lawyers, the Ministry of Finance and the Attorney General’s Ministry to safeguard the assets of the Council and residents of Belize City.”
“The WRIT OF EXECUTION resulted in an inventory being taken of the Council’s assets,” it said.