And all jokes aside, the city's sanitation is no laughing matter. It's one of the hardest but most critical departments in the City Council, and today, they've received a donation that will make the work a little easier.
The Ambassador of Japan, Kazuhiro Iryu and the Mayor of Belize City, Bernard Wagner today signed a contract valuing over half a million Belize dollars to support the procurement of two garbage trucks.
Today the mayor told us how this will strengthen the city's garbage collection.
Bernard Wagner, Mayor of Belize City
"This donation will really enhance and augment our garbage collection. As you know that has always been a challenge for all municipalities, especially Belize City. Belize City is a growing municipality and the level of equipment that we have clearly can't satisfy the demands of the city and so being able to increase our fleet from 2 and having an additional 2 really goes a long way."
Reporter
"How has the collaboration between the Embassy of Japan came about?"
Bernard Wagner, Mayor of Belize City
"It really started during covid. We had the discussion in respect to their grassroots human security project and we felt that this donation could be captured under that grassroots program. Their program is a model which focus on municipalities and NGO's funding projects that really alleviate poverty, human security and that sort of thing. So we felt good about this project from the outset and the embassy was really cooperative with us. As you know Belize Waste Control has a contract for commercial and residential garbage, but there is always gaps in terms of the hotspots all across this city. We have hotspots where our night team go in the night and really fill those gaps that are not covered within the scope of the Waste Control contract."
Reporter
"The work that the LIU has undertaken with people to clean the streets, that's also a collaboration with the city council?"
Bernard Wagner, Mayor of Belize City
"That is ongoing. We do believe in ensuring that we engage our youths, we engage everyone in respect to cleaning up of the city and the LIU program obviously has been doing its part. Having these additional compacter trucks will certainly enhance our ability to pick up those garbage."
The exact figure of the donation is two hundred and sixty nine thousand, seven hundred and forty seven US dollars.
