If you've been following the news, then you'll know that in early December, 7News wrote to the City Council under the Freedom of Information Act to request contracts awarded to GEL Quarry Company Limited. Since we know that one of the councillors had been previously associated with this company, we investigated its connections with the City Council. Basically, our question is: does the city award contracts to its friends and councillors? If it does - that's a sure signpost for insider trading and corruption.
More than a month after our first request, we were finally allowed to view the contracts - and only view, not record or bring back to the newsroom.
Courtney Menzies was at City Hall today and she has this story.
On December 7th, 7News sent a request under the Freedom of Information Act to the Belize City Council, asking to see all contracts awarded to GEL Quarry Company Limited since March of 2021.
Councillor Edmund Kwan was once a director of this company, and since he claims he didn't give up his shares until early 2022, any contracts given between that time would be considered a related party contract.
Since then, there has been communication between our newsroom and the Council's lawyer, William Lindo, and it was agreed that there would be a meeting today to view the contracts, at 1:30 this afternoon.
And right on schedule, our news team arrived for the meeting on the third floor of City Hall. We were asked to leave our cellphones at the front desk, and our camera had to stay outside the meeting room, as they instructed us that no recording devices were allowed in the meeting room - where we would view a PUBLIC contract..
During the meeting with Lindo, I was presented with two contracts - one dated August 2020, and another dated October 2022.
The contract in August 2020 was for the upgrading of seven streets in both Southside Belize City and Belama Phase 4. It was witnessed by Kwan.
The second contract - which we acquired through our sources - has been on the news before - it's for 1.2 million to upgrade the Gungulung area. That was signed at the end of October - and by then, according to Kwan, he would have already surrendered his shares. Again, we have seen no proof that he did transfer his shares.
But though our request was for all contracts awarded to GEL Quarry, we were only given access to those two. Granted, they may be the only ones in existence, but as we had told you last month, 7News obtained a copy of an invoice for over 45 thousand dollars paid to GEL Quarry for works done at Eternal Garden Cemetery. That invoice was dated October 2021, less than a year after Kwan took office.
It is unknown if a contract was granted for that project - or if twas just a verbal agreement.
7News will continue to apply for copies of the contracts.
