By Marion Ali, Assistant Editor
The Belize City Council will embark on a project to remodel the city streets that have, over the past several months, deteriorated well before the 30-year lifespan they were projected to last.
The Council had received a number of complaints from citizens that some of the streets that the Council had paid to get cemented only 3 years ago have already begun to break up. In a few cases, the deterioration had gotten so bad that the steel rods that were laid before the concrete was poured on top are beginning to expose from beneath.
Belize City Mayor, Darrel Bradley told the Reporter last week that the Council had done an assessment of the 160 streets that the Council had invested in and it was found that about 5 percent of those streets will need to be redone. To that end, a few weeks ago, Bradley signed a new agreement with R J B Construction to remodel some eight streets that need the work.
The mayor explained that the Council was able to do so through suppliers’ credit – a privilege that the Citco enjoys with various construction companies, which allows them time to clear the cost. In this case, the sum will be paid over 3 years.
The 160 streets that were upgraded (of the 520 total in the city) were done through the $20 million Municipal Bond, with an additional $10 million from central government. But because the bond was the first of its kind ever in this entire region, one of the oversights of the Council was to ensure that there was technical supervisory capacity and a budget for a maintenance plan to address problems of this nature when they occur. Those are things the Council is now working on, Bradley explained.
Bradley said that the other 95 percent of the streets have lived up to the expectations and that he would give the overall work a grade B.
The municipal leader added that the monies that the Council generates from property taxes, traffic revenues and trade licenses can only cover the Council’s existing operational needs, so in order to carry out any kind of infrastructural work, it has to source loans, bonds or grants for those projects.
The streets that will be upgraded include: East Canal, West Collet Canal, Eyre Street, Chancellor Street, a section of Euphrates Avenue, Raccoon Street and Gibnut Street and the work should be completed within one year.
