On Friday night's news you heard from Engineer Roque Matus who claimed that a foreign firm had stole his drawings and sold them to City Hall calling them their own.
It's a major claim of professional wronging and all weekend the blowback has been building. Tonight it has resulted in two press releases, one lawyer letter and one Ministerial interview.
We start with the first release which is from City Hall. That one is 3 pages long and it refers to, quote "public misstatements made by Roque Matus and broadcast by Channel 7 News."
It claims that in 2019, the Government of Belize awarded M&M Engineering Consultants Ltd. a contract to prepare the detailed design for the proposed new Belcan Bridge. Upon completion, the design documents ("Design Documents") became the property of the Government of Belize. The Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing (MIDH) held possession of the Design Documents - which were later shared with the Belize City Council. The Council then engaged a foreign firm, described as, quote, "an international engineering firm with experience in Belize (including the new Fort George Hotel project), to provide supervision services for the construction of the bridge."
This firm determined that "the Design Documents sent to them were incomplete, not suitable for construction or supervision, missing important components such as calculation notes, geotechnical and environmental reports, and key structural details needed for design verification and otherwise." end quote.
It says, quote, "In summary, the Supplementary Design Documents provided by this firm reflect significant improvements over the original Design Documents, both in structural adequacy and in constructability."
