Last Thursday, we told you about the quiet dispute that's been unfolding between the San Ignacio Santa Elena Town Council.
UDP Mayor Earl Trapp spoke out publicly to say that he finds himself in a fight with the majority PUP councilors on the mixed local government slate for the Twin Towns.
He said that he had to resist their choice for a new Town Administrator because, in his opinion, that candidate fell far short of the educational qualifications for the job.
Well, the PUP Town Councillors fired back with a press conference of their own this evening at the PUP's Headquarters in Belize City. They came out swinging at the mayor alleging serial instances of lack of accountability and the mass hirings of his family members.
Here's a small snippet of their complaints against his leadership from this evening:
Matthew Preston - Deputy Mayor, SISE Town Council
"Whenever we the councilors pushed for transparency and accountability, the mayor and the UDP cries foul. All we are asking for the media is to do a fair and objective investigation of what is transpiring in the twin town. No one questions about the conflict of interest, the checking and balance including the mayor with the above mentioned: the family gains per annum, quarter-million Belize dollars with family entitlement of a monthly average of $4,000 overtime. There is no check and balance. Why is the media not questioning this? The recent audit that was completed sometime in September 2021, the mayor has not brought up to us the elected councilors, he has not brought it up to any of our council meetings for 9 months. He's been holding, he is withholding all this information from us."
Aaron Mai - Town Councillor, SISE Town Council
"The council has the power to raise loans, the power to make regulations relating to accounts and approval of the auditors. We have been denied this for the past 9 months. The council also has the authority to approve auditors and the last audit was approved by the mayor only, not by the council and we have been refused to see the final management letter from the auditors."
Zahir Figueroa - Town Councillor, SISE Town Council
"Since the days of campaigning, we have always been pushing for transparency and accountability and once we were elected, we kept our word and we decided as a council to do just that. We have decided that monthly we would upload our profit and loss statements of the town council to social media so that the residents of San Ignacio and Santa Elena are able to view them so that they know where their funds and monies are being spent and where it's being used. During this 9 months, after implementing that decision as a council, that has only been followed for 2 months and to make it worse both of those months those figures that were uploaded were wrong."
We'll been trying to reach the Mayor for comment, and we'll continue to reach out tomorrow.
