The UNDP's and GOB's Electric Bus pilot project is expanding their operations to inter district runs. The Ministry of Public Utilities, Energy, Logistics and E Governance unveiled three new inter district e buses today which are scheduled to run from Belize City to the North and West. Here are the highlights from today's unveiling.
Woman Says Open Man Hole Left Her Injured And Unable To Earn, Blames City
And the subject of our next story says right now she can't even afford to pay for a bus ride. That's after she fell into a city manhole on November 18th because it was not properly covered.
It left her injured and unable to work. She told us her story today:
Jacqueline Gentle, Manhole Victim
"I was walking down King Street heading towards George Street and I was in mid-conversation with my cousin and I felt myself falling, so I pushed my left hand out to break the fall. At that point I realised that my feet were, the right foot was distended towards the street and then the left foot actually went into a manhole."
Reporter
"What did the city council assistant or front desk tell you when you went there?"
Jacqueline Gentle, Manhole Victim
"When I went there they advised me that if I didn't have a report from the doctor that they would not be able to see me so they sent me away. That was on the 18th. The same day."
Reporter
"At any point did they mention to you that it was irresponsible of you to not be observant of your surroundings?"
Jacqueline Gentle, Manhole Victim
"No they didn't advise me of that they just made it clear that they weren't going to be able to help me unless they had the report from the doctor."
"I went to KHMH and I was seen there. An xray was done on my foot. I was then given five days off of work at that time and advised to seek higher medical professional help because they were just an emergency room."
"And so I then went back to the city council advising them of what was requested of me and I told them I don't have money for that like you know, I'm not even working at this point because of the injuries that stay into my leg. How then can I go and pay for a doctor?"
"They told me well they can't proceed or they can't help me with anything. I then advised them why don't you guys pay for the doctor, so that we can establish what was wrong. The pain grew worse to where it was affecting all the right leg and my lower back."
"I then went back to the emergency room. I was seen by the doctor who then recommended that I see a chiropractor based on the new x-rays and a surgeon. I went back to city council they then advised me that I needed to pay out of pocket to see both of these specialists."
"If I don't have any money, because I haven't been working then how could I pay for that if I can't even pay my bills that are accumulating as a result of the injury that I sustain."
Reporter
"At any point did yo`u show them the x-ray or any sick leave paper from the doctors or whoever looked at you."
Jacqueline Gentle, Manhole Victim
"They were provided with both the initial and the current you know first from the doctor that I seen it was into the second into the first week after the injury and then they were provided with the new and updated recommendation to see the surgeon and the chiropractor."
"Still nothing."
Works Councillor Says Manholes Are An Issue
We today asked the councillor in charge of works ABOUT THE case - and he said news of the complaint had not reached him:
Allan Pollard, Deputy Mayor
"I'm not familiar with the event. I wasn't involved in that. But it's unfortunate. We don't like those things to happen in our city. We've had incidents before, but, we, our team at the works department, we try as much as possible."
"We have a robust manhole replacement campaign going on. We have, I think we replaced over 500 manhole covers of course, the more we do, the more these big trucks continue to break them. So it's been a problem for us for quite some time. We are always appealing to business owners to make sure that their drivers refrain from parking on the sidewalks, because these things do happen."
"And it's not only because the infrastructure is damaged. In this case, we have a person who who has been seriously injured. As far as I know, with their complaints that usually come into the council as it relates to injuries or medical attention, we usually deal with those in a timely manner. So this one, I'd have to look into that."
Coming Soon: King Street Traffic Lights
But one improvement that's coming to King Street is traffic lights at the junction with Regent Street.
It's one of the intersections where you're most likely to get into a traffic jam at rush hour. Here's how the light should help alleviate that:
Allan Pollard, Deputy Mayor
"Well, that has been on the table for quite some time. I understand that they are doing, simple light there. It's nothing too complex. Just to alleviate some of that pressure that we have in the morning, that congestion. The biggest thing for us in terms of traffic management, we want it to be as equitable as possible. From what we have seen in most of the areas that we have installed already. It's one of the most equitable ways to manage traffic. Sometimes we have to have multiple personnels out there. Just to give way to people on Regent Street or with people on King Street, which to me is not sustainable. We've seen it with St Thomas Street, we've seen it with Faber's Road, and we've seen it with Chetumal Street. King Street is just an addition to that. Also Hyde's Lane as well."
"Most people from who traverse that area, most people who are parents of kids going to who can attest that that light has been super helpful in morning times and evenings as well. So we're hoping for the same kind of results on King Street."
PR Cards Handed Out
And from the city streets to Orange Walk Town, the PM was in his constituency today attending multiple events. In the morning, he was at Muffles College where some of those who qualified for the amnesty program received their permanent residency cards. He said that the process to issue this document has been slow so far but they expect it to speed up in the coming year.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Under the amnesty program, we gave a number of permanent residence cards. Also we had his excellency, Filippo Grandi, who is the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He has been the highest ranking member from the UN who has ever visited Belize. He looks at Belize as great example of a country that opens its doors to refugees or people that have been displaced, people that have come into the country without proper documentation, and he admires what we're doing, not only as a government, but also as a people and over the past few days that he has been here, he says that he is seeing the warmth of the Belizean people, how open we are, how friendly we are, and he can see how a lot of these migrants that are now getting their papers or their permanent residence, their PR, are being integrated into the Belizean society and he thinks that is a part of a successful program where you can integrate the people that come into your country so we are very proud about that. So far, out of the 12,000, approximately 12,000 applied, we've already finished off with 2,800 and we expect to speed up the process. They only had one printer, it's a special printer so we had to get another one, it's very costly, and also had to bring in more people, look at the process, how we could speed up the process, so we believe that in the coming year, we're going to be able to speed up the vetting and the approval process."
Vital Stats On The Road
And after that event, the PM went to the park where Vital Stats brought their services to the people of Orange Walk. But while they are going around the country to help residents who need it, the government is simultaneously working on digitalizing the unit.
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"This event here, we have the Vital Statistics Unit, along with legal aid services for people to be able to get, either they don't have a birth certificate or they saw a mistake, it was misspelled or want to correct anything they've seen when they were registered, and for people it's difficult to be able to go all the way to Belize City so with them coming here, it's so easy and with legal aid, the same thing. And I was talking to Ms Stuart, the lawyer, and she was saying I'm learning a lot because for instance, a farmer came to speak to her about him renting his land for cattle, and she said I didn't know you rent the land per head of cattle. So divorce, all kind of thing, people are coming to them. One of the things our government is attempting to do is to make services easier to our citizens and we have been working on digitizing the vital statistics unit and I'm very happy to say that at the last meeting I had with the team, they're ensuring me that by February, between February and March, they should launch the digitized vital stats unit, but we will start off with, we've done the Toledo District, the Belize District, and the Orange Walk District. Once we finish and launch that then we've already started digitizing the other records. It was again a slow start, it was a learning process when we're trying to digitize, to take those old records, take a PDF file and then have to try to type it in so we managed to separate those two functions and that has helped us to speed it up. Again, that is something that is a part of Plan Belize."
