Belize City Mayor, Zenaida Moya, is once again in the center of a political maelstrom, only five weeks away from the United Democratic Party’s mayoral convention, for elections slated for March next year.
The political storm winds gusting in the old capital have already claimed one victim, in the person of WAVE Radio morning talk show host and Senator, Juliet Thimbriel, and may soon claim another, Councilor Mark King, who appears to be a bitter opponent of Mayor Moya.
Mayor Moya appears determined to enter the mayoral race once more as the UDP’s candidate, but her deputy mayor, Anthony Michael, stands in the way. While the mayor claims to have the support of the majority of her councilors, Michael has appeared on camera surrounded by the majority of the councilors, the same councilors whose support Mayor Moya has said she has.
It is widely known that Zenaida has the strong support of undefeated political veteran, Housing Minister and Mesopotamia area representative, Hon. Michael Finnegan – a very influential man in the UDP.
On top of what appears to be financial problems, the story of which appears later in this article, the mayor has managed to alienate her city administrator, Englebert Perera, who she has blamed for the ongoing crisis between the City Council and Belize Waste Control (BWC).
The company stopped removing the city’s garbage as from Monday, claiming that the Council had not paid its bills for the last two weeks. The owner of Waste Control, Anthony Griffith, has said that he does not have enough money to keep paying his workers, so he had to send them home.
The saga began when Councilor King appeared on both Channel 7 and 5 last Thursday night to lambaste his mayor, accusing her of ineptitude, mismanagement and corruption. King admitted that in doing what he did he broke an agreement signed by all the councilors and the mayor to refrain from publicly criticizing each other during the campaign for the UDP municipal candidates.
He knew, King said, that the “exposé” could cost him his job.
Then Mayor Moya attacked, calling a press conference with the city’s television stations. She not only refuted King’s allegations, but told viewers that he was “loony,” circling her finger from her temple in the well-known gesture to indicate an insane mind.
On Wednesday morning, Englebert Perera called the UDP’s WAVE Radio talk show which featured its hostess, Senator Juliet Thimbriel, and co-host Joe Bradley.
Mayor Moya wasted no time, and as soon as Perera was off the air, called in with her rebuttal.
Thimbriel, apparently not a supporter of the Mayor, chastised her publicly, in strong language, and told Zenaida Moya, basically, to go do her job.
The scolding reportedly incensed the party’s leader and Prime Minister, Hon. Dean Barrow, who called Thimbriel (off-air) and scolded her. Juliet is WAVE Radio’s general manager.
The senator, a strong Dean Barrow supporter who blasted the excesses and corruption of the Said Musa administration for the five years before the change of government in February of this year, was so hurt by his remarks that she later resigned her post in the Senate. She was also taken off the air, we understand.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow left the country yesterday, Wednesday, on personal leave, before Thimbriel announced her resignation.
All this is the backdrop to the mayhem that erupted at City Hall this week. Today the Belize City Council headed by Mayor Zenaida Moya, is not only rocked by accusations of financial impropriety, but the city government appears to have a serious cash flow problem.
A little less than two years ago, the City Council was granted an overdraft facility by the Bank of Nova Scotia for three million dollars. They had to mortgage the City’s Commercial Center before the bank signed them on for the overdraft facility. Last year January, the City Council managed to wrestle a one dollar head tax from the Belize Tourist Board for cruise tourists. This amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars more in revenue for the city council.
But with all the money at its disposal, the City Council was unable to meet its payment to one of the sanitation companies.
On Tuesday of this week, a protest was staged in front of City Hall by Belize Waste Control (BWC) workers. The BWC workers were protesting over payments that their company had not received from the Belize City Council, which contracts them to collect the city’s garbage. According to reports, BWC had not been paid for about three weeks.
In an effort to understand what is happening with the people’s work at the Belize City Council, Amandala dropped in at City Hall to speak with Mayor Moya.
When did you know that the sanitation workers at BWC were not being paid, Amandala asked Mayor Moya? “I heard about it on Monday evening from someone here at the City Council,” Her Worship responded.
When you learned about the situation, what did you do?
“I called the City Administrator to ensure that they were paid,” Moya replied.
But how come there appears to be a communications disconnect between you and the City Administrator, Mr. Englebert Perera?
“That is a very good question, because he comes directly under my supervision.”
Mayor Moya went on to say that she had already gotten advice on how to proceed with the City Administrator. And the BWC issue has been resolved, because, according to her, checks were signed late Tuesday afternoon.
“I am tired of the back and forth. I just want to get on with my campaign,” the embattled mayor declared.
The United Democratic Party is holding nationwide conventions to select its standard-bearers for the up-coming municipal elections. The convention to pick a mayoral candidate and city councilors for Belize City is to be held on October 5. Mayor Moya is being challenged by her deputy mayor, Anthony Michael, who has the support of some of the other councilors.
According to the City Administrator, Englebert Perera, there simply was no money to pay Waste Control. Perera, in his Wednesday telephone call to the UDP “Fus Thing Da Morning” radio show on WAVE, told host Juliet Timbrel that the council had no money in the bank and that he had been advised by the bank not to write any checks.
In our conversation with City Administrator, he told the newspaper that Mr. Anthony Griffith of BWC had called him to ask him when he would be paid. Perera said that the City Council was behind three weeks payment to BWC.
“I explained to him that we did not have the funds. So we could not pay the money. We owed BWC $93,000.00. The Mayor, according to news reports, said that Mr. Griffith protested because I did not call her,” Perera offered.
Is there any bad blood between you and the Mayor? Amandala asked.
“None. I have nothing against her.”
Perera went on to say that, “Before she made comments to the media, she should have discussed the issue with me. I update the council from time to time regarding the finances.”
The City Council has a budget that runs from April to March. At this present time, the council is only five months into its budget for this fiscal year.
According to Marion McNab, the Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Local Government, the City Council gets $1,484,500.00 per year in subvention from the Central Government. When the subvention is broken down in monthly payments, the Council gets, $123,709.33.
When asked if the present situation at the Council would lead the Ministry of Local Government to order an auditing of the Council’s financial records, McNab said that they had discussed it on Tuesday of this week with the Auditor General, and the timing is not right to conduct such an audit. Moreover, only the second half of the audit needs to be completed.
“What is contained in the audit has to be addressed by the mayor and the councilors,” CEO McNab told Amandala.
Amandala also spoke to the Director of Local Government, Eugene Palacio. Palacio said that the Council is more or less autonomous. His department provides training regarding the City Council legislation, but that they have sufficient human resources personnel to manage their own affairs.
But when it comes to their budgetary situation, Palacio said: “They are definitely in a cash flow crisis. Perhaps their revenue will improve at the beginning of the year.”
The City Administrator, Englebert Perera, told Amandala that he “won’t comment on whether the budget is spent.”
City Councilor, Phillip Willoughby, told Amandala from his City Center office that: “With all that is going on, I am not going to give you an interview.”
At City Hall, Amandala asked for a copy of the City Council’s budget, but was unable to get any official documentation. The Council’s Financial Director, Dwayne Davis, is out on vacation. And the person holding over, Kiran Budhrani, said that she “needed to get approval from the mayor” before she could give out that kind of information.
When she called upstairs and spoke to the mayor, she said: “I am not authorized to give out any information.”
Budhrani pointed out that the Council had held a press conference last Friday afternoon, and the budget had been presented there. It was pointed out to her that Amandala was not invited to that press conference, and besides, the document that we were requesting was supposed to be public information.
Efforts to speak to other councilors were equally unsuccessful. Apart from Councilor Wayne Usher, who was not in office at the time, no other councilor is at City Hall.
Amandala has also learned that the Lord’s Ridge Cemetery is fast running out of space, and that very soon there will be nowhere to bury the city’s dead.
Mayor Moya disputes this, saying that the City Council has already signed a contract to clear some areas of the burial ground. “The contract is signed and has been approved by the City Council, “Moya insists.
The contractor whose contract has been approved by the City Council, Windell Lemoth, says that his contract has been approved for about two weeks now. But he has not been paid the ten percent down payment. “The City Administrator has been postponing and postponing the ten percent payment for me. What will happen is that people will continue to die and we will not have any place to bury them because the cemetery is running out of space.”
City Administrator Perera weighed in on the issue of the burial ground, “We already signed a contract to clear the burial ground. Once it is cleared, there will be burial space. We have enough time and we won’t run out of space,” Perera told Amandala.