Cabinet has approved 2 million dollars for the renovation of the Belize City and Belmopan bus terminals. 1.6 million dollars is going towards the former and before this time next year, the terminal will be completely upgraded - complete with epoxy floors and air conditioning. Here's what CEO Williams told us about it.
Chester Williams, CEO, Ministry of Transport
"We had promised that we intend to renovate the bus terminals, it is something myself and the minister and the government are extremely adamant about, we believe that our commuters across this country deserve better than what is being offered to them currently at these bus terminals. I've visited the terminals on numerous occasions and it is petrifying to see the conditions of these terminals that people have to be sitting in waiting for a bus and so I am happy to say that we presented a Cabinet paper asking the Cabinet to approve funds to renovate the Belize City and Belmopan terminals, those are the two major ones for now, to the tune of $2 million and Cabinet approved that proposal. Now I've seen where a number of persons on social media are saying $2 million to renovate the terminals and it would only cost about $500,000, no. the grounds alone is far more than $500,000 because the approval incudes concreting the entire terminals grounds and putting in proper markers for the buses to park."
"It is going to include putting a canopy over where the bus parks so that when it is raining and you exit the bus or you're going to enter the bus, you don't have to worry about using an umbrella, the canopy is going to be there to protect you from the rain when coming out of or entering the bus in rain. It is going to include proper drainage of the terminal area for example Belize City, there is a need for us to raise the flooring, at least about 6 inches because of the flood that occurs any time it rains in Belize City so raising the flooring and then we want to put proper drainage around and with that we're going to epoxy the entire floor of the terminal so it's going to be very beautiful with epoxy flooring. And somebody asked if the terminals are going to be fully air conditioned and the answer to that is yes. We're going to have full air conditioned terminals, we're going to install a new bathroom facility in Belize City with four bathrooms, two for females and two for males. The stalls that are currently there are going to be renovated so there's a lot we want to do to make sure that the terminal reaches a certain standard. We're going to have free wifi at the terminals so while you're there you have wifi you can use to spend your time while waiting so these are things we want to do."
The other $400,000 is going towards the Belmopan terminal, which will also be getting funding from UNDP. Williams said that the Orange Walk terminal is also a priority, and they are trying to source funding for it.
