In the public's perception, any vehicle with blue plates has the green light to burn fuel, zoom through checkpoints and blas' 'bout at will - under ice and in deep tint.
But, not if the Assets and Utilities Management Unit has its way. That's the unit in charge of overseeing and authorizing fuel cards for the government's vast fleet of vehicles.
This month they have been doing their annual inspections and insurance renewals while making an overall evaluation of government transportation.
The manager of the unit, Ashton Longsworth, shared more with us today about the purpose of this yearly exercise.
Ashton Longsworth, Manager of Assets and Utilities, MOF
"For the last year or two we have embarked on the distribution of insurance stickers to the government across vehicles the country. So today we are in Belize city, and tomorrow we move to Dangriga and Friday Punta Gorda, and then we go to Cayo and Orange walk on Tuesday and Corozal on Wednesday we have already Done Belmopan since Monday."
"We distribute these stickers physically to these vehicles because it gives the department or the unit and idea of which vehicles are operational and if your vehicle is in the mechanic shop and you don't know when it's coming out then we don't issue the insurance to you. We return it to the insurance company and if it comes out three months later, the insurance cannot charge us for the whole year. It actually charges us for the remaining balance of the year so it saves government money. It allows us to know which vehicle is operational and what does government have operating."
"This year we are about 1700 vehicles and about 200 motorcycles added onto that that is the fleet that we have recorded on the third-party insurance system. There is the comprehensive insurance that ministries who have extra money and want to protect the vehicle more than the third-party they find that money and pay for the comprehensive insurance."
"So when we are out here, we get to see these vehicles we get to pull the dark tint off the vehicles that are not permitted to have dark tint. We get to see the vehicles in the condition that they are in and then we write to the ministries if it needs to be written to based on what we find with these vehicles out here."
The AUMU falls under the Ministry of Finance.
