And while the Minister says that sugar roads are a priority, he also expressed misgivings about the value received for the new Ministry of Foreign Affairs building - which was donated by Taiwan.
Yesterday he discussed what he called the exorbitant price of construction but also the fact that personnel of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Trade has had to squeeze into an unfinished building that is not projected to be fit for purpose.
This morning we raised the issue with Minister of Foreign affairs Eamon Courtenay who expressed his frustration with the building and its 15-million-dollar price tag.
Eamon Courtenay - Minister of Foreign Affairs "As I understand it and we're continuing to review the files and the building that is still not complete even though the completion date was for October last year and what I have been able to understand is that originally there was a proposal for the building to be constructed in such a way as to accommodate the officers of foreign trade and foreign affairs. For some reason which I have not been able to understand the person's in charge of the Ministry at the time decided that they would not do that, we are now left with a situation where 15 million dollars has apparently been spent on the building and that we're not sure of but we're left with a situation where we're having to squeeze in the officers of Foreign affairs and foreign trade, they will have to work in less than ideal circumstances and conditions in a building for which 15 million dollars has apparently been spent. We are not happy about it let me tell you that we are not happy about what we have found. We are working with the contractors to re-design and re-purpose some of the accommodations within the physical space that is there. We are not satisfied with what the result is going to be, but we are making the best of it. 15 million dollars that were donated to Belize was apparently spent on those facilities and we can only work with what we have and it is regrettable in my view that this is what Belize will have as a result of what seems to me to be obvious poor design, poor instructions given to architects, and absolutely poor planning but we are investigating the matter further."
We also asked the Minister about key diplomatic postings yet to be announced but he told us that he was just about to attend a meeting with the P.M, in which they would discuss just that.
