Why is there a chronic shortage of license plates and sometimes even license stickers? It's been a persistent problem for the past few years and today we asked the Minister when it will be resolved:
Jules Vasquez
"Sir, are you able to speak as the Minister of Transport about the chronic shortage of license plates and license stickers and this sort of thing? Man, I think you give the contract to one of your people and they're supposed to keep it supplied. That's what I heard."
Rodwell Ferguson, Minister of Transport
"That's not true. And I just implement the procurement system in the Ministry that if you want to buy a license plate, if you want to buy anything, and it must produce the three supplier invoices."
"And they will decide, it don't have to be the least, but it depends on the quality. We just asked the Ministry of Finance for a de-reservation, so by August I can guarantee you that the license plate problem in Belize will be fully over."
Jules Vasquez
"How did we get into this situation though, because it seems like when you transition from UDP to PUP, obviously I understand, you all cut off the UDP suppliers, but it seems that whoever picked it up on your end didn't pick it up well."
Rodwell Ferguson, Minister of Transport
"It will never be the supplier. Once you make a request, the supplier should be able to produce. The problem could be in-house where we never got maybe enough money to sustain and purchase license plates."
"Now we have resolved that issue. So I can tell you by August, we should resolve the license plates and sticker issue and we should go forward."
