BELIZE CITY, Wed. May 26, 2021– On Wednesday morning, just as employees of various private and public institutions were about to start their day, two government offices in Belize City received phone calls in which bomb threats were issued.
Reports are that around 8:40 on Wednesday morning, a call from an unknown number was received at the front desk of the Belize Tax Services, located in the Charles Bartlett Hyde Building. The unidentified caller informed them that there was a bomb on the premises. That led to a prompt evacuation of the building and a subsequent sweep of both the building and the outside premises by a bomb expert team from the BDF.
A separate threat was made on the building on Coney Drive which houses the Treasury Department. Employees there were also sent home, after which the BDF team did a thorough search of the building and nearby vehicles.
The interruption of the services provided by these two departments lasted almost four hours— virtually that entire morning. Employees of the departments were asked to report back to work at 1:00 p.m. that same day.
Claims were being made that a bomb was allegedly planted in a black vehicle on the Belize Tax Service compound and was supposed to detonate on Wednesday.
Captain Emerson McKoy, a BDF bomb expert, declared the premises to be safe by 11 o’clock on Wednesday morning.
The Director-General of the Belize Tax Service has stated that continuity of service is of paramount importance to her department. She informed the media that while the department’s service was interrupted for a few hours, catching up on the work to be done for the day was not difficult, since yesterday was not a tax collection day.
She told local reporters that the department is in the process of updating its business continuity plan, given the recent strike actions taken by the unions, in order to ensure that service continues to be rendered to the public.
There is no indication that this recent bomb threat is a part of the protest action being carried out by the Joint Unions at this time. They have called on employees working in Government offices to join their demonstration for the implementation of good governance legislation and against the finalized 10% salary cuts.