There are much bigger issues for our people to focus on right now, so, with your permission, I would like to close the curtain on my series of lamentations on the historic Belize City landmark – the Pound Yard. I suspect that ground will soon be broken, and a huge privately owned skyscraper will arise on land we used to consider our own City Council’s property.
Fellow Belizeans and especially City residents, fifteen years from today your children and grandchildren will ask you, “Daddy/mommy/granny/grampa, why is it that when the buses come into Belize City down Cemetery Road, they have to go along the canal side and jam up traffic when they park, and then squeeze their way into the narrow gate when they need to go into the yard to pick up passengers in front of the little terminal building? With this big shopping mall and lots of people moving all around, everything is so congested and the traffic is a nuisance? We understand that that whole area where the mall is now, was once for the City. Why on earth didn’t you all make a nice, big bus terminal there instead? You could have extended the market too, and charged rent for stalls. And still have space for parking vehicles, and other activities. What were you people thinking!?”
We might sheepishly reply, “Yes, regrettably, that was, indeed, our idea. But we sold the land to a businessman, who then put up the shopping mall instead.” (Of course we would be ashamed to admit that we practically gave it away.)
“But why; why did you sell the land to the businessman, if you knew the City needed to expand the bus terminal? You could have leased him a little piece for his mall, and still done the terminal expansion and other things.”
What else can we say? “Well, it’s a long story. First, the City sold the land cheap to a businessman, with the understanding that he would do the expansion and upgrading of the bus terminal. That was ‘the purpose’. Then he got into financial trouble, and it ended up with another businessman buying the land and using it for his own purpose, building a shopping mall. Government could have stepped in to acquire back the property ‘for a public purpose’, but nobody in Government or the Opposition wanted to tamper with a ‘done deal’.”
“You mean the Opposition didn’t demand the Government to get back the property? They didn’t demonstrate and raise hell to get the Government to ‘do the right thing’?”
“Actually, believe it or not, the Opposition was in the City Council, and on the land at the time. They just packed up and left the property so the new owner could come and build his mall. They said the City was robbed, but it was a ‘done deal’, and it was a legal matter that was out of their hands.”
“And everything just went smoothly like that?”
“Yes, like, … ‘like wan lee breeze’.”
There is so much going on right now, where “selling out The Jewel” is concerned. But a lot of it is under cover, out in the country, out at the cayes, on the Internet, etc., etc. Aside from the recent UHS $33 million guarantee, the only one that is right up front, “in your face,” where we can all see it and touch it, and feel the pain of the “chance” taken of us, is in the center of town at our Pound Yard. Instead of $3.5 million, we only collected $129 thousand.
Every Belizean traveling by bus from the City, or coming by bus from any of the district towns and villages, will be affected by this situation. The businessman will benefit tremendously from their “business” at that strategic position. Good for him.
Pound Yard is in the Mesopotamia electoral division. There is a UDP area representative in the House of Representatives, and there is a PUP aspirant to this position in the upcoming general elections. Neither has said a word or moved a muscle.
Pound Yaad. Pound Yaad.
Weh yu do, mek dehn treat yu so bad?
Pound Yaad. Pound Yaad.
It’s a shame, and ‘e mek wi feel so sad.
Nobody wan(t) fight fi ole Pound Yaad
Afta yu work fi di City, so long an haad.
Di Government and the Opposition
Dehn no give a damn;
Di Blue dehn gi yu weh fi small change,
An di Red dehn just hands-up, an seh yu done gone.
Pound Yaad. Pound Yaad.
Weh yu do, mek dehn treat yu so bad?
Pound Yaad. Pound Yaad.
It’s a crying shame, and ‘e mek wi feel so sad.
Heng yu head down low,
An’ tek di slow, lonely walk down Cimitry Road.
Go join yu long time friend denh da Ole Laad Ridge.
Fi betta or fi worse, only time wan’ tell.
No worry; we kyan faget yu, becaa wi still got di bridge.
Farewell, Pound Yaad, Farewell.