And while the tourism industry hopes to find its footing soon, one business woman was able to get her foot back into the door at City Hall after they publicly rebuffed her special gifts two years ago.
You might recall back in October of 2018, when Deputy Mayor Oscar Arnold told the media that an Asian Woman known as "Miss Nan" had left an envelope stuffed with fifty $50 bills on the desk of the City Administrator.
Well, that envelope was promptly returned to her along with a letter in which the mayor demanded that she stop leaving monetary "gifts"; her generosity had apparently become well known in government and municipal offices.
But, fast forward two years and Nan Cheng was back at the Council - with the authorised Council ID to prove it. According to the ID, she was employed as a revenue collector.
Today when we asked the Mayor about it he explained that she was recruited last year because of her ability - or perhaps her "gift" - to speak Chinese.
Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City
"The lady that you speak about does not work for the council, we have many agents, many collection agents, so it has been a system that I met here. Many collection agents and in this instance, this lady that you speak about, she's Asian so she has some measure of connection and is able to speak the language and she engaged us and we essentially said, alright, there are about three or four Asian people that you could do the collection for us and having the language barrier. Remember that many of these individuals were facing the effects of COVID-19 as well, so many of them wanted to speak to us that listen, we dih struggle too, our hotel broke, our hotel has been shut down since March 2020, we need relief as well, but the language barrier has always been challenging for us so for that very short span of time, she negotiated for three person for us."
Reporter
"How did she get back into the conversation with the council that you'd be able to recruit her after she so blatantly tried to induce the council?"
Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City
"Well, the Council have always had many suppliers, we met many suppliers working that we do business with, many suppliers. And the fact of the matter is that she is in the business of supplying goods and services to the business community and to Belize as a whole and as a fledgling council, you're always trying to seek some measure of, in terms of - you want favorable terms, credit terms, if I dah wah business man and somebody give me a 90 days credit I am happy about that, I am always looking for favorable credit terms given the fact that as a council you're always struggling with cash flow and if you have a supplier who gives you a 90 day credit, why not take it?"
Reporter
"So roughly, I know you said it was a brief time that she was working with you guys, but roughly how long was it?"
Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City
"I can't recall, I believe it's about two weeks to three weeks the most."
Reporter
"So she only had the ID for like two weeks?"
Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City
"Yes."
We note that the mayor and Ms Liu seem to have a mutual admiration society: her Facebook page has a post saying, "Belize City Mayor - The Best Mayor in the World."
We reached out Liu Nan - who is also known as Nan Cheng for comment but at news time she had not responded.
