Mayor Zenaida Moya is back at the helm of City Hall after a couple of weeks absence after she attended meetings outside of the country. And as is now a matter of record, during her absence divisions in the council flared up, beginning with speculation that the paving of Banak Street was being done in an arbitrary and over-priced fashion. Coupled with that there was the termination of Pamela Smith who had been serving at City Hall under consent of the Mayor only to be dismissed by councilors. Yes indeed, it was quite the trouble pot in City Hall but now that Moya is back, she told us today that the entire council has agreed to one thing: mutual understanding.
Alfonso Noble,
What did you learn from this Banak Street situation?
Zenaida Moya, Belize City Mayor
"Well you know that communication is the key. At the end of the day while you might be trying to do things in the best interest of the residents and that is the bottom line that I see. Some people might want to know the nitty-gritty of everything and communication is everything and that is what we have agreed upon. First of all to have a meeting and to inform of the nitty-gritty of everything might become cumbersome and it may hold back the actual work of the council."
Alfonso Noble,
Our information is that the UDP Central Executive is going to be basically babysitting the council in terms of trying the affairs in the council straightened out.
Zenaida Moya,
"I wouldn't say they are babying. This is something that we put forward. Someone like myself, I have campaigned on integrity and ensuring that there is participation and we wanted to ensure that so there can be no, absolutely no concern about what is going on the City Council, we want to be as open and as transparent as we can be. We agreed and we wanted these people. We had a meeting after and we were discussing different contracts and at what level I can go ahead and approve. They said any contract $5,000 and below I can go ahead and approve on my own and I was the one who said, 'no way, I want all contracts, everybody to look at so there can be no questions.' That is even though someone like me will look to ensure that there is value for money so we will always look at the lowest bid but we will ensure that at the end of the day it's the best quality, it will be done in a timely manner, but I went ahead and said no way, let everybody have a say and it doesn't matter if it's a contract for $100, it doesn't matter. So we were the ones who agreed upon this."
Moya says the council will have its first meeting in the new spirit of compromise on Wednesday of this week.
