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Last week, Government paid 6.9 million dollars for land to house the 90 million dollar University Hospital. No public announcement was made until yesterday - after almost a week of 7News trying to unearth the facts of the story.
The 15 acre plot sits at the entrance to Belmopan, not far from the Capital's sewage ponds and at a flood prone dip in the road.
It was purchased from Annie Zhu and Kenny Zheng - and Zheng is known to have deep connections in both major mass parties.
So was the land purchase a special deal with a special friend? We today asked the man who should know best, Minister of Natural Resources Cordel Hyde. His Ministry did a valuation of the land which said it was worth 6 million dollars.
But how did Kenny Zheng's land come to the attention fo the government in the first place? Here's what he said about it - starting with a retelling of the government narrative that the UB land was unsuitable:
Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources
"As you probably say in our press release, Ministry of Health went to Cabinet some months ago and made a compelling case to state that where we were proposing to put the hospital on UB land was not the most ideal, was really not workable for them, pointing out that the location was 9 kilometers from the roadside which is six miles that you had to build a road, that getting there would have required going through a circuitous nature, I don't know what that means, but ultimately they didn't have water, didn't have light, didn't have internet, all of those infrastructure would have to go in there and you're talking about virgin territory, you're not talking about existing road or dirt road or anything like that and so that would have represented an undue burden as well for workers, for staff and for people who need to access the hospital. So Cabinet was convinced that ultimately, the professionals, the technocrats at the Ministry of Health were the right ones to determine which location is best for them and so we left that in their hands, they didn't approach the Ministry of Natural Resources technocrats to check to see what is available in that particular location which is between the Hector Silva airstrip and Guanecaste Park. Why? Because the technocrats at Ministry of Health deem that to be the primary nexus, the best meeting point, best meeting ground for patients coming from the west, patients coming from the far south and so they came to us, our technocrats did research, presented to them that one, there is no government land there, and two, that you have about six private parcels there. Two of them have erections on them, the other two are some ways off the road and there were two owned by one owner that was roadside. The Ministry of Health indicated that that's the land they wanted, that that was ideally what they were envisioning and so negotiations ensued."
But, while government claims that's the land the technical people at health chose, as we've been reporting, that land has issues. It is within proximity of sewage ponds and is flood prone.
The media pressed Hyde - saying - that while they talk about costs of developing the UB land, this area would need a whole new bridge:
Reporter:
"This new proposed location is still not without fault because I spoke with Mr Moody yesterday and he said it is between two flood prone areas and the Kiki Witz area would need a whole new bridge to be constructed or when it rains people from the city wouldn't even be able to access the hospital."
Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources
"Well, the people, the technocrats in our ministry felt that that particular parcel or parcels of land is elevated as compared to the areas that are nearby that's low-lying and prone to flooding so they felt that that particular area wouldn't be susceptible to that kind of flooding. The truth of the matter is that the entire country is flood prone. I mean we're living in 2024 and climate change and all that has happened in this country, there is no perfect location. You have very serious rainfall, you have very serious weather, you're going to have flooding. As it relates to the bridge, that's a serious matter, forget about the new hospital, you're talking about not having access to Belmopan, not having access to the entire Cayo District, if you're coming from the city, forget the hospital so it's incumbent upon government to figure out how to get that bridge in the shortest possible time, not just because of the hospital but because of what it means to the entire western part of the country in the event of a very serious calamity."
Reporter:
"But how will you manage the sewage ponds in the area so close to a hospital?"
Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources
"The technocrats say that it is located like 5 acres away from the proposed hospital site. To be precise, 4.8 acres. That is some distant versus the fact that you have very nice houses from Cohune Walk and those areas that's located 200 feet from the"
"Sewage pond, you know very close to it so that's something that they have to manage but I'm no expert and I guess the experts will have to determine that for us whether 5 acres is space enough between the sewage lagoon and that kind of development."
