And while the MIDH's high profile work is building houses, it's everyday work is getting the always battered sugar roads ready for the sugar season ahead.
But, what caught our eye is the awarding of contracts to a company related to the PUP area rep for Corozal Southwest, Ramiro Ramirez.
We asked the CEO Victor Espat about the contracts awarded to RJC auto Parts and Heavy Equipment:
Victor Espat, CEO MIDH
"I know our ministry awards contracts throughout the north for the refurbishment of sugar roads. Right now we have contracts going on in all the constituencies in the north, because we are getting ready for the sugar season. We try to work with contractors from within the constituencies and these are registered legitimate contractors that have been screened, pre-qualified and so whether that specific contractor is related to Mr. Ramirez or not has no bearing in terms of the evaluation that was done in terms of his ability to do the work or not, but I can guarantee you that from our ministry there is no connection and our contractors are not influence by the politicians in the respective areas. Belize is a small country and so whether you have relatives in construction or in any type of business, I dont think that that itself should disqualify them to be able to get a legitimate contract."
"We did a completion report on all the monies that was spent. I think this is the first time in the history of Belize that something like that has been attempted.; If you look within that report, you will find the same company in that report. It also gives specifics of which roads they did the scope of work; it speaks to the value of contract and so it was put out there. That I believe you are getting the information from, from the completion report that we issued and now we are back again on another cycle of sugar road repairs and that company is from that area or from that constituency and so I believe they have a couple of small contracts as well for work for sugar roads in that area. We are talking about small contracts. Most of these contracts are under $50,000."
