And while all the rain has produced one good thing in those lower light rates, it has caused chaos in the city. The City Council may have paved close to 100 streets, but the other 400 or so have fallen to ruin - and everywhere, front ends of cars are being wrecked, while near craters threaten to capsize those same cars, and potholes riddle the roadways.
All that is bad enough, but imagine our dismay when we saw potholes being formed on streets that were cemented less than a year ago. These are the streets that cost so many millions and were supposed to last decades, but rain erodes everything, especially poorly poured concrete. Today we asked the city council's PR Officer about it:..
Daniel Ortiz
"Are you able to give us a comment on that situation where possible potholes have formed on cement streets which were signed off on?"
Kenny Morgan, Public Relations - Belize City Council
"Definitely, I don't think it's anything that we need to shy away from. Given the number of streets that the City Council has embarked to renovate and uplift, it is only natural that if we do 100 streets we can expect a few of them from time to time the science of pouring cement is not that exact a science. From time to time there will be instances where we will get some negatives/bad pores. Whenever we enter into these contracts with the actual contractors, we ensure that it specify in the contract that if within inappropriate time span we see any sort of deterioration then the onus is on the contractor to go back in and do over whatever remedial works need to be done."
"We urge people to continue calling us on our complaint line or reach out to our councilors or managers in person. Let us know where the problem lie and that will assist us greatly in getting out there and doing the necessary works to improve the situation for all."
Presently, the other problem is drainage. With all the rains, and the clogged drains, newly paved streets like this one on South Street has become a catchment area unto itself. Today work crews had to break into the concrete on Queen Street to try and drain off that major roadway.
