by Colin Hyde

A couple or so months ago, someone who thinks they know things told me that the contract for raising the little stretch of approach road on the west side of the Roaring Creek bridge was 9 million, and I told the sabelotodo, “this one you got wrong, go back and check your zeroes and you’ll find that you saw one too many; the GOB can’t spend more than 900 thousand there”. Well, welcome to the world. Ouch! I’ve been watching the developments here on this what, one-third-mile stretch of road week after week, and bit by bit it dawned on me that the work going on, hmm, this job isn’t for $900,000.

It’s not so long ago, in an administration that we all want to forget, that near to the Guanacaste Park a roundabout with a multi-light fountain was designed, with first estimates for its construction being an incredible 2 million dollars. The story behind the spectacular structure was that it would lift the hearts and minds of Belizeans when they drove by. Some of us thought it would have been better to put food in our bellies first. This approach, it is beginning to look like that kind of fantastic thing, an SUV on a financially poor man’s budget.

I met a friend in Roaring Creek this week, one who knows things. I said to him, man, someone told me that this incredible thing happening before our eyes here is costing us 9 million. He said: 9.3! Please say it ain’t so! Boy, I bet there are more amazing stories in Belize than anywhere else in the world.

I believe around 80 million (I don’t think the RC bridge ($11 million) is included in that) was invested by the past administration to raise and improve the drainage of the GP Highway, so that it would better withstand the impacts of weather that has become more severe. Clearly the highway was improved; it is now also a little wider and more resilient—but there was a six or seven-mile stretch where we could have had two for the price of one.

I told you some time back that I believed the project to improve the highway between Roaring Creek and Santa Elena was not properly thought out. It was all good between Santa Elena and the S-Curve outside of Teakettle, but when they reached there, they should have diverted the funds to link the dirt roads that run behind Teakettle, Camalote, and Roaring Creek.

I wish an engineer would weigh in on this matter. If the investment had been in a highway behind the villages (to the south), there would be far less congestion on the GP Highway, and the old bridge, which is structurally sound for most vehicles, could still be in use. If they had done that, they could have placed the new bridge several hundred yards up the creek, at a better spot. Then this unfathomable story presently unfolding before our eyes would not have been.

We could do with some explanations, why so much is being invested to raise the approach to the RC Bridge so that it isn’t inundated when the Belize River floods. If the delay caused by a top gyalan flood is so costly, we could have dumped up that one-third mile stretch with white marl and covered it with a hot mix until it set. And then properly surface it. 900 thousand, that’s about what we had to spend on that approach. 9 million, if that is true, boy do we have money to burn.

It must be foreign money we’re spending. Did somebody lend us a whole lot of money and direct us to spend it there? It’s definitely no grant, or we’d have heard about that. Bah, despite our having to pay back, these people come with directives. The loan might have been so sweet it was difficult for the government to refuse, but I say if it’s not a gift, you have to look it in the mouth. Without going too deep, did the PUP stop to think that they’ll never again be able to question 8 million spent on a mile of Fabers Road?

My area rep, Julius, is this all his conception? If so, there, and I had thoughts that this brother really had some left leanings. Did our area rep feel the savings off the Haulover Bridge gave him license to spend so much on this little stretch in Roaring Creek? There’s no totally bad thing under the sun. Quite a few brothers and sisters in the village have gotten jobs. But we can’t be so short on ideas. There are many other projects that could have been done. The brothers and sisters in RC could have gotten jobs working on some buildings. Equipment could have been bought, and teachers hired. The youth in RC and surrounds could have had their own trade school. And then with their knowledge they could have made businesses, opened a factory.

Maybe every penny that is being spent on this approach is above board. I haven’t gotten out my tape and scale to check the numbers, so I can’t say. Or maybe this is one a dem old-style PUP bloated contracts. Long years ago, Jorge Espat told us how the PUP roll. Maybe my area representative took one for the team. You know, got himself all smeared with the ugly brush so the party could have funds to remodel the Queen Street building, put in AC and sauna for the ODS. Maybe skimmings from this project are funding all this high-tech equipment that Vaughan Gill and Hilly boast are coming to give Vibes national coverage very soon.

My, all I see when I pass through RC is 300 beautiful, necessary starter houses that might have been. That’s what we could have gotten for this flood mitigation.

Don’t duck those pressure meds

One of our celebrated doctors who lives da foreign advised recently on his social media page that men shouldn’t dodge blood pressure pills because of potency issues. Hmm, HBP is an issue with older adults, and those of us with African ancestry are known to be most prone. So, the group needs the HBP meds to manage the pressure. And according to the doc, the pressure pills can cut the supply of blood to the pump. And so some men are ducking.

Ahem, are mature women pressuring older men into early graves?

We can’t hide it, there’s always the suspicion when a mature man shub off all of a sudden that the synthetic blue pills might factor in the demise. If Pfizer wasn’t the manufacturer of both the blue pill and the most popular Covid-19 vaccine, we could be suspicious that all these charges being made against the vaccine were being put out there by the pill maker, to siphon off some heat.

Whoa there, you know that all this stress and danger for brothers would just go away if, ehm, some people got a heart. I say, only if you’re a real innocent you don’t know that it is a fantasy of every woman that their man has temporary front end problems, just so they can, ehm, feel superior for a while, just so they can complain about not being satisfied. I know the source of this beef. It goes back the full 6,000 years, and my, ain’t that a lot of years to be carrying so much angst.

I can’t believe they have produced studies which say that they become more interested as they age. Is this of creation, evolution, a figment of imagination, or cold vengeance?

I sari, I will defend the fraternity. Ai, this world, when we were bullies, prime, they had all kind a excuse. And now the pressure pills reportedly di kaaz a little loss of steel. Yes, I agree, I should cut out here. But not until I say, I vote NO to any blue pills. If age come an yu can’t make it, yu can’t make it.