BELIZE CITY, Wed. Jan. 27, 2021– The Belize Civic Center, which underwent a $33 million facelift back in 2018, has remained under the control of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development through the stewardship of the Belize Infrastructure Limited (BIL).
However, the future existence of the Belize Infrastructure Limited is in question, since Hon. Julius Espat, Minister of Infrastructure Development and Housing, has stated that he is in the process of trying to convince Cabinet to do away with the government-owned entity due to an ongoing audit which is bringing to light breaches of proper financial regulations in their transactions, and he is still trying to determine which government ministry should oversee the upkeep and management/ownership of the Belize Civic Center. He is the process, he said, of drafting a Cabinet proposal to pinpoint the appropriate oversight entity under which management of the sporting and entertainment facility should fall.
In an interview on Tuesday, Hon. Espat said he believes that the Ministry of Youth and Sports as well as the Belize City municipality are two possible options, but ultimately the decision lies in the hands of the entire Cabinet.
According to Espat, an evaluation of the existing contracts issued through BIL under the UDP is also being conducted. He made clear his belief that some of the contracts were awarded for personal gain and that he will “forcefully bring his point across,” and hopefully the Cabinet will decide to do away with BIL altogether. Since the new administration took over the reins of government, there has also been a new management team of the BIL which consists of two CEO’s from Espat’s Ministry and two members from the Ministry of Finance who will help to determine the company’s fate.
Where the Civic is concerned, however, Espat mentioned in his interview that the BIL is only doing minimal maintenance and housekeeping of the grounds:
“Presently BIL is only maintaining the Civic to a minimum level, meaning paying the light bill, paying the water and paying security, nothing more than that. Because of COVID is the excuse that people are using that they couldn’t continue with the contract, so we are also looking at those, but presently BIL is only paying for the light, the water and security…BIL was designed to, to a large extent, spend millions of dollars on white elephant projects, and the Civic is one,” Minister Espat remarked.
“To give you an idea, we can’t maintain the Civic because the environment is artificial. To run the Civic, it has to be under full air conditioning, so it’s not economically justifiable for a country of our level. You might want to justify it as first world architecture, but you can’t put first world architecture in a developing world reality,” Espat further said.