by Colin Hyde
Because Belize is large relative to our population, and because we are spread out across the country, and because we don’t manufacture vehicles or parts or fuel, the cost of transportation is extremely high. Transportation is one of the highest costs in every enterprise in Belize. A worker who commutes between Belmopan and Belize City daily spends upwards of $60 per week on bus fare. It’s a great burden on commuters.
Looking at the quality of buses in service, it is obvious that most of the bus owners aren’t getting rich off the industry. The present service is an upgrade over “truck back”, but 50% of the buses in service are more akin to “truck back” than they are to Greyhound. The PUP 1998-2003 had a grand plan to hand the bus industry to a single owner, to bring it closer to international standards.
I don’t have the hayr aaf a di haas tayl een a mi hand, but I would wager that the plan was that a bus owner in the transport minister’s district was to get the whole shebang. That transport minister was Henry Canton, and the bus owner was a member of the Zabaneh family — I think Mr. Eugene – and they owned the best bus fleet in the country, which they called Z-Line. There are many people who know things, who won’t talk. I’m not a journalist; I opine on the stories out there. Without facts that have passed through thorough scrutiny to go on, well, I have to pick sense out of what I see.
Z-Line moved to buy out the other bus owners, and along with a number of small operators the company acquired Batty’s Belize City-Benque run, and Gilharry’s Corozal Town-Belize City run. I believe Z-Line was trying to complete a deal for the Novelos Benque-Belize City run; but James, who owned the PG-Belize City run, wouldn’t buy in. Z-Line, unable to acquire James, soured on the proposition, and, according to story, the Novelos walked into DFC one fine morning and walked out with a check for $30 million. Whispers say Novelos cut the check in half to buy out Z-Line and all its acquisitions. Intriguingly, UDP leaders, who damned the Novelos purchase, have never said how they spread the money.
Prior to the grand PUP scheme, the Novelos were sailing along. Within a few years, their bus company collapsed. Until fish frahn riva batam taak, I maintain that had Z-Line won the day, the PUP government would have done their all, whatever price the company demanded from commuters and such, to make the enterprise succeed. Some have suggested that the government absolutely abandoned the brothers from the island of Benque Viejo.
Fast forward to 2025 and we have a scion of Z-Line who was recently handed the keys to the transportation industry. Before the ink dried on his new title, he announced (“he” is Minister Louis Zabaneh, who, according to some unconfirmed whispers, is a shareholder of the flashy Floralia Bus Line) that the best path for the bus industry lay in a national public/private bus company.
On a straight line, maximizing on economies of scale could work out well for commuters. But there are many questions that will have to be answered. Will the government have the golden share? How can a small bus owner be convinced to buy into a company with big players? Aha, the UDP suggests there’s an end game, and when the dust settles it will be like all schemes PUP. The UDP says everyone agrees that the “public transportation system is a hot mess and in dire need of fixing”, and that “at face value, it [public/private] sounds like an excellent and desirable plan”; but the party is leery because the PUP has a track record: everything they turn into a hustle.
According to a Love FM transcript, UDP Queen’s Square area rep, Godwin Haylock – that brother has a lot to do to make up for his division’s abandonment of the nation for almost 5 years – yes, Mr. Haylock, he said, based on the Ministry of Transport’s inability to “to enforce traffic rules on bus drivers,” it is hard to believe it can handle “the logistics and finances of the entire bus monopoly.” Haylock said that “bus owners are afraid that they will not see any profits for many years, as the monopoly feels its way around”, that the “Minister of Transportation has been completely silent on the issue of profits”, and that “maybe it’s because there’s a reality that public transport should not be profit-driven. It should be cost-effective for the poor. It should be subsidized with a view of one day being free for all.”
Dear Godwin, – hmm, that fellow has big footsteps to follow, a huge name to live up to – I am yet to see a copy of Plan Belize 2.0; all I have is a brochure, and there’s no mention there of this ambitious bus plan. Maybe Lu-ih hatched this AFTER it was announced that he was king of the road, hence government not making any provisions. I don’t say it is a bad thing.
Channel 7 suggests that Bernard W is now a real PUP
That news clip, Channel 7 challenging Mayor Wagner about a nurse heading a team to paint a couple buildings belonging to the Belize City Council, at a very tidy price, well, inquiring minds all over are left to wonder. Has he? Has the great Bernard capitulated to the blue mantra, if not for yourself, tek one for the team? Man, I guess I’ve been around in this corner long, why the “I told you so” thing keeps popping up, no matter how hard I try to stay away from that vein. Remember I told you that the PUP tent is big enough for only ONE saint, Mr. George Cadle Price; and anyone who gets a pass from their ODS, anyone who gets a welcome to the party, haffu get the sense iffn dehn noh get it already.
Don Hector runs off a lot about the saintly set in the PUP in his day. I’m not about to investigate if he and his friends were as squeaky clean as he said they were. I say that it’s real hard to be a saint in politics. Staying with Don Hector Silva, maybe he was free of graft, and that would explain them kicking him out for Assad. Ah, Braa, yu have to comply.
The sense I had when B Wagner entered politics to run for the mayor’s seat on the Belize City Council 2018-2021 ticket, was that that foray came about more by association with the Lake-I branch of the PUP that was fully engaged in stopping the Barrow train, than from his being a party insider. I say, if there is anything not fully on the up and up with the nurse job, from the outside looking in I might have to think that he is one a dem now, a real PUP, a man with sin.
There is a question about procedure. I don’t know what the process is for the job of painting City Hall. According to the Mayor, it’s a basic “procurement” thing, routine, old hat. I can tell you what I know. There is nothing suspect about a nurse being entrepreneurial. Nurses are trained to communicate; they have to know how to buoy the spirits of people who are flagging, which is the situation for everyone confined to a hospital bed. People who are paylkaypm and people who can talk get unsecured loans from the banks. Nurses, they’ve got the star tool, the gab to lead.
Talking cost, painting a building the size of City Hall noh cheap. You can tell the size of a householder’s bank book just by watching who’s painting their house. If it’s a hired painter yu know dehn account stack! At the House meeting, Minister Julius told us the deal when hiring a plumber. He said you have to open the checkbook to begin the negotiations. Plumbers and painters and carpenters who have the finish of cabinetmakers work at stevedore rates. As for the materials, there’s a range of paints, and none a dem cheap. Some paints cost more than top-shelf imported whiskey.
Aha, Channel 7 daubed blue paint on Bernard.