It was a big day for the Joint Unions Negotiating Team, as it signed a long overdue collective bargaining agreement with the Government of Belize. It was a lengthy process that began in late 2008 and, sixteen years later, was finally completed today. The Belize National Teachers Union, the Public Service Union and the Association of Public Service Senior Managers were all represented this afternoon at the House of Culture here in Belize City, where signatures were affixed to a new C.B.A. that has the approval of all parties. But was the signing of the collective bargaining agreement merely ceremonial, since the time allotted for the existing agreement expires in August? Following the event, Prime Minister John Briceno spoke on his administration’s will to complete the process within the period that it has been in office.
Prime Minister John Briceño
Prime Minister John Briceño
“We are a government committed to doing what is right, that we are a government that’s committed to our workers and that we made certain commitments to the union when we needed help when we just got into government and, lastly, it is the right thing to do. That is why we managed to finally come to, bringing this agreement to an end which is, unfortunately, the next two months the time period will end and we’ll have to start a new cycle.”
Reporter
“But sir, you are also the prime minister who complains almost in every budget presentation about the onerous wage bill, it’s at like six hundred million now. Where are we going with this, as in when will you take steps to curtail that?”
Prime Minister John Briceño
“That has not changed and in my remarks I mentioned it and it’s something that has to be addressed. We are addressing it right now when it comes to the issue of the pensions, it is unsustainable and we’ve had a number of discussions with the unions and the unions have already agreed in principle that the pension as it stands right now is unsustainable and that we are coming up with an agreement as to where’s going to be the cutoff date as to will stay on on the present system and who will come on on the new system.”
Spearheading the effort on the part of government was Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde. Along with a team of senior government officials, he sat with the Joint Unions Negotiating Team and together they hammered out the terms of the new agreement. Admittedly, Hyde said the process was at times testy. Nonetheless, both parties were able to arrive at an amicable management-union agreement. So, will the C.B.A. be short-lived?
Cordel Hyde
Cordel Hyde, Deputy Prime Minister
“In some ways, but it’s substantive too because, the truth is, there was a big sticking issue for all these years, for sixteen years which is Proposal 22 which is a costly one, as the prime minister pointed out. Over a five-year period, it’s gonna cost sixty-eight million dollars. No government was willing to countenance that over this long period of time but it was absolutely important to them. I can tell you that sometimes things got really, really testy over that issue, even within the unions themselves. But it’s the right thing to do, ultimately you have teachers working for many years in the service, working at institutions where they are getting seventy percent of their salaries from government, thirty percent from private owners and then when they retire, they can only get seventy percent of pension from government and the private owners are the, not the private owners but the church owners. They don’t pay, they are not able to pay, as they say, so these people, after giving all their lives to public service, I mean it doesn’t get any better than that when you’re a teacher and giving so much of your time, so much of your effort, so much of your being to teaching.”
The People’s United Party has chosen Doctor Osmond Martinez as its standard bearer in Toledo East where he will face Dennis Williams of the United Democratic Party in an upcoming bye-election. The vote, restricted to that constituency only, will see a new area representative taking office ahead of general elections in 2025. While the prime minister has been reserved in a sharing a date for the bye-election, he told reporters this afternoon that it is now set for July seventeenth.
Prime Minister John Briceño
Prime Minister John Briceño
“I’ve asked for the writ to be prepared and the date that I have set after consulting with the Elections & Boundaries Commission to see when they could get ready the voters list, I would want to have it as early as possible. The date is going to be July seventeenth, which is going to be on my birthday. So I’ll be working on that day in Toledo East.”
It happened on June first, but only came to light this week, that doctors and nurses who were on duty at San Ignacio Community Hospital that night came under threat by relatives of a severely injured man. David Galindo was shot while visiting his girlfriend on Salazar Street in Santa Elena Town and was rushed to the hospital for treatment. He died a week later, but the series of events that occurred at the hospital on the night he was taken there have reportedly left the staff at the facility in fear of their lives. Members of the Galindo family are accused of hurling threats at the medical team that if David Galindo died, the medical professionals would die too. But the family has come out slamming the Belize Police Department and the media for referring to them as gang members. And when asked about it, Commissioner of Police Chester Williams basically brushed off the family’s reaction. He told reporters that, moving forward, he wants the Belize Police Department to collaborate with the hospital in formulating protocols so that order is kept. News Five’s Marion Ali filed this report.
Marion Ali, Reporting
The Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams, arrived at the San Ignacio Community Hospital just before two p.m., where he met with the management and staff, as well as representatives of the Ministry of Health and Wellness. He told us after the session that he wanted to hear firsthand from the officials what transpired on the night of June first, when David Galindo was taken to the hospital.
Chester Williams
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
“Having heard from them what took place on the night in question, we discussed to see what we can do to make sure that there is no occurrence in the future. And one of the things that we are doing is that my legal officer, Mr. Jones, will be working along with Dr. Sabido to develop a protocol in terms of how the police is going to respond to incidents at the hospital. And even what the police is going to do when there is a high profile patient being treated at the hospital. Particularly if that patient is brought by the police. So the, way it was done before where the police just come and drop the person and leave. There have to be something done to create police presence. In the event that persons may want to come and create problems.”
David Galindo
The family of David Galindo has lashed back at the police, denying that they are gang members. Galindo’s brother, Mynor Galindo told News Five on Tuesday evening that he was not at the hospital the night when his brother got shot and only found out that he had been shot when his family called to inform him. He said he found out that the ambulance driver did not want the family to accompany David to the hospital and that if they tried to, he would park the ambulance. Galindo said this was when there was some back and forth with the staff.
In a Facebook post, Dianie Waight, said that she was the only one who accompanied her brother in the ambulance. She denied that any of her relatives are gang members. Waight said, “It wasn’t even the police that took him to the hospital. We did cause if it was left to them, as they hear a Galindo is down, they would move much slower. They took more than thirty minutes to arrive at the scene. We were desperate, we wanted the doctors to move faster. I do apologize for any misbehaviour. The next thing, they said a gang member. Soh I da gang member now then? I had a right to go along. Somebody had to go with him.”
Commissioner Williams did not care to respond to the Facebook post. He focused his comments on the meeting with hospital administrators and told reporters that investigators are reviewing surveillance footage from the facility to identify the persons who threatened the hospital staff. During the meeting, the ComPol shared a few suggestions.
Chester Williams,
“I also suggested to the hospital what they can do is that, with their security that they currently have, we can look at training them and making them special constables. Since the police is not able to work at the hospital on a 24 hours basis, the security that they have, if they’re special constables, they’ll have the poor as a police. They’ll be able to do law enforcement job and arrest people who may come on the grounds to create problem. We also discussed to see how we can do we’re going to be doing crisis management training for both the hospital staff as well as the police again. The hospital staff would require the training so that they know how they’re going to handle a crisis at the hospital and the police will be trained to be able to respond to that crisis, so it’s going to be a joint venture between the police and the hospital authority to make sure that should there be a crisis, our response is going to be in sync with each other.”
This is an idea that Williams would recommend for hospitals across the country, especially the ones that are in locations where gang activity is high.
Chester Williams
“We have to make sure that when we do have patients who are high profile, when I say high profile like in the sense of their presence at an institution may create some threat, then we will have to make sure we have a system in place to be able to deal with that so it can be replicated across the country. Again, really said they does have something not in writing, but it is implied. Police officers do know that when they respond to an incident at K.H.M.H., we normally leave police officers there. We’ll see how we can adapt that. In the time being, police can stay at the hospital while the patient is here, at least for a certain amount of hours until the patient is stabilized or transferred or whatever.”
When asked why the meeting had just been called when the incident occurred from June first, Commissioner Williams said that he had just recently become aware of its veracity and egregious nature. Marion Ali for News Five.
The administration and medical staff at the San Ignacio Town Hospital are not the only ones in that community that have expressed concerns about the increase in criminal activity. After his meeting with the hospital administration, Police Commissioner Chester Williams held a meeting with the businesspeople from that area. They turned out in numbers, along with residents, to share their thoughts and suggestions on how to address the problem. Cayo North East Area Representative, Orlando Habet, also attended the event, and he told News Five’s Marion Ali that Cabinet had just discussed the issue the same day and had taken the first steps to curbing the crime situation in the once peaceful twin towns. Here’s that report.
Marion Ali, Reporting
The meeting with the members of the Cayo business community ended in the night with a variety of concerns, suggestions, and expectations. Police Commissioner Chester Williams said it was important to get those thoughts to see how they could allay the fear that some residents and businesspeople could be experiencing.
Chester Williams
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
“I brought my team with me. I have Commander of Operations, Mr. Grinage. I have Mr. Gamboa, who is the Commander of S.P.U. I have Mr. Bart Jones, who is a legal officer, and we also have the new Deputy Commander of the Western Region, Mr. Crispin Castillo, and Mr. Franco is also a part of the meetings. It is important for us to hear what are these concerns, and then we’ll make sure that whatever policing plan we’re putting in place, have in place, it is adjusted to be able to address the concerns of the business community and not just the business community but the wider community on a whole.”
There were quite a few concerns and suggestions from the persons who attended the event. Jian Li spoke of the concerns that the Asian community in the twin towns have and he says that they have lost interest in the police department.
Jian Li
Jian Li, Spokesperson, Asian business community, Cayo
“They were concerns over the crime rate, especially with the incident with the previous Chinese guy that has passed away – been killed – we have lost interest in the police department because four to five businesses have been robbed already and they have no result, no result in whatsoever. We want to discuss how can we actually implement a better solution for San Ignacio and Santa Elena and the urban areas and the villages in the Cayo District.”
Li says that the Asian community is not pleased with the way the San Ignacio Police Department has handled the crimes that have occurred. Now, a community that used to donate freely to the formation is contemplating a whole new approach to giving back to the police.
Jian Li
“That’s what we’re discussing right now – that what if we donate and they don’t do much work? What would be the result? So what we are discussing is that whosoever participates in capturing the attacker or the robber or the killer, they will be rewarded as long as he posted in the social media or in the mainstream media in Belize and we see that it’s approved, then we will approve a reward for the participants with the police.”
Marion Ali
“So the individual officer, not the department or the branch will be rewarded?”
Jian Li
“Not the branch, just the individual, or any individuals that participated.”
Li expressed hope that the police in Cayo will also conduct more traffic checkpoints and zero in on motorcycle drivers and passengers since recent crimes have been committed by people on motorbikes. Shelmarie Smith works with the San Ignacio Town Hall, but on Tuesday evening, she spoke as a concerned resident.
Shelmarie Smith
Shelmarie Smith, Concerned resident
“People here in San Ignacio and Santa Elena are really and truly concerned about the crimes that are being committed here in the Twin Towns. And we’re trying to see how we can work together with the police to bring these people to justice. It’s very sad to see that our people here are being killed for no reason at all, or because they are working hard. And these criminals are just coming to just take away their daily lives like that because of an amount of money or something to that effect. It’s not fair. We could sleep with our doors unlocked. Now we have to be closing burglar bars and all that. So I believe that it’s just criminals coming from different areas to our town. So we need to install those police checkpoints at all times and have them there 24/7. There’s 100 of them or 400 of them. There’s 40,000 of us. So we have to get together and pull as a community to fight these crimes and that’s the only way it can be solved.”
Cayo North East Area Representative, Orlando Habet, also attended the event and assured the gathering that, coming out of Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the concerns would be addressed in a timely manner.
Orlando Habet
Orlando Habet, Area Representative, Cayo North East
“San Ignacio and Santa Elena being the second largest municipality needs to have more police officers. And as a matter of fact, we understand that it has less police officers than Belmopan, being a larger municipality. So we were assured that would be fixed. The minister of police was adamant in that he will ensure that his officers do right by San Ignacio, Santa Elena, and the surrounding communities. But I also think that not only in terms of the number of police officers, because that will also increase when they build the new police station in Santa Elena. But also to see how they can get more equipment, vehicles, especially so that they can do more patrols and be able to respond to calls from the public as soon as possible.”
And while the business and residential communities in Cayo have expressed their concerns and Area Representative, Orlando Habet has given Cabinet’s assurances for more fighting power. Earlier today, the Prime Minister also gave his word that the government will go after gang members and those who refuse to find employment and terrorize others. He told reporters that once individuals are found guilty of being gang members, there might have to be an amendment to the law to require those people to be imprisoned.
Prime Minister John Briceño
“The law is very clear that if you’re a gang member, you can get 10 years. Imprisonment, and if you’re a head of a gang member, you can get as much as 20 years. Unfortunately, for one reason or the other, in San, and I have to be very careful how I say this, for whatever reason, the police department took two gang members to court in San Pedro. They admitted, or they have accepted that they’re guilty, and they were just given a $1,500 fine. And I believe that, that we can’t – that’s a slap on the people of San Pedro, because these people have been – these gangs have been terrorizing the people in San Pedro. So we have said that we are going to go after them. We’re not – we cannot allow a small group of people to terrorize this country, and we’re even talking about maybe even amending the law to ensure that once you’re a gang member and you’re found guilty, that you are going to go to jail.”
Reporter
“Doctors are being terrorized by gangsters.”
Prime Minister John Briceño
“That would happen in any place. It happens in the United States. Just yesterday in the United States, they hijacked a public transport bus. So for you to say, it’s a failure because something like that happens in every society – now the failure would be if we refuse to act. If you look at what we’ve been doing over the years, we’ve been strengthening the police department, we’ve been giving them more equipment, we’ve been getting more police. We just agreed to give them another amount of – we just approved some more monies for them to be able to continue to monitor the northern borders to ensure that Kaborga gang or cartel cannot come into Belize. So we are doing. As something comes up, we are acting on it.”
Reporter
“There is some type of fundamental failure of 10 days elapses, and you all don’t know anything about this major security breach.”
Prime Minister John Briceño
“How can you act if you don’t know? If your pikni misbehave and nobody tell you, is it a failure of you?”
Reporter
“But something is broken in the Ministry of Health then.”
Prime Minister John Briceño
“The problem was that these doctors were terrorized by these people and were afraid to speak out, and they finally did. So by the time you got your video, we were already acting. We were already hunting down these two individuals. And also now we’re going after all of those that were outside in the compound, in a threatening manner. We have been acting, and I don’t see how you could hold the minister in charge of the police responsible for something like this. If you have people that do not want to work, and want to terrorize our citizens, then we have to deal with them accordingly.”
The Toledo Alcaldes Association is dissatisfied with the Attorney General’s decision to remove and replace the alcalde and deputy alcalde in Indian Creek Village in January. Represented by Senior Counsel Godfrey Smith and Leslie Mendez, the T.A.A. has filed an application seeking permission for judicial review and an injunction to prevent the government-appointed alcaldes from performing their duties until the trial concludes. Meanwhile, the Government of Belize, represented by Senior Counsel Marshalleck, argues that the Inferior Court Act establishes an Alcalde Jurisdiction Court led by government-appointed alcaldes. However, there is no legal recognition for the traditional alcalde system in these villages, although legislation does acknowledge the authority of village councils. This situation has led to a longstanding debate over which authority is supreme in Maya villages. The attorney general followed the village council’s recommendations in the latest appointments, which has not satisfied the T.A.A. News Five’s Paul Lopes reports.
Paul Lopez, Reporting
The Toledo Alcaldes Association is taking the Government of Belize to court. In January, the Attorney General removed and appointed an alcalde and deputy alcalde in Indian Creek Village, Toledo District. The T.A.A. filed for permission to bring judicial review proceedings following GOB’s decision. The association asked the court to order that newly appointed alcaldes not proceed with any of their functions until the matter is heard. According to the T.A.A., the decision by the government is a violation of their customary rules and constitutional rights. Christina Coc is the spokesperson for the association.
Christina Coc
Christina Coc, Spokesperson for Toledo Alcaldes Association
“As the rest of Belize knows, in Toledo all forty-one communities practice a system of traditional governance which has two alcaldes in each village. This is an important system of governance for us. It has sustained our communities since time immemorial and so we think it is really important to protect and safeguard what has really kept our communities.”
Senior Counsel Andrew Marshalleck is representing the government. It is no secret that the village councils and alcaldes are not always seeing eye to eye in the forty-one communities within the Toledo district. It has been a long-standing issue, but the constitution does not recognise the traditional alcalde system.
Andrew Marshalleck
Andrew Marshalleck, Senior Counsel, Attorney for Government
“And the issue for the government is whose recommendations do I heed when I am making appointment, whether it is the duly elected village council or whether it is votes from village meetings which is their customary practice.”
Paul Lopez
How is that the government can intervene in customary practices such as the alcalde system
Andrew Marshalleck
“The Inferior Court Act provides for the government to appoint to preside over the alcalde jurisdiction court, which is a court equivalent of a magistrate’s court. It is the same way it intervenes to appoint your magistrates, who preside over you. It is an exercise of the sovereign rights to govern this territory.”
The T.A.A. contends that the government cannot appoint alcaldes to the jurisdiction court without recommendations made during village meetings, which is its customary decision-making process. Much like it is with the case of customary land rights, TAA argues that while it may not be recognised by law it is their right to exclusively determine who will fill these positions. Senior Counsel Godfrey Smith is representing the TAA in this matter.
Godfrey Smith
Godfrey Smith, Senior Counsel, Attorney for Toledo Alcaldes Association
“And, our response to that is and will be developed that in the same way back when the maya first advocated for customary land tenure, it was not recognized in the laws of Belize, so too we are saying that the right of their village to exclusively determine who will be alcaldes and the right to remove them vest in the village, not by virtue of any written law of the land but by virtue of constitutional interpretation utilizing international treaty obligations and international customary law.”
Reporter
“Because currently you don’t have an alcalde’s law, once all of that is sorted this is the way you want to go to have the government enact such a law?”
Godfrey Smith
“Well we are not concerned, I cannot speak for the government. We are concerned with the state of Belize and the court recognizing and protecting the rights of indigenous people to a variety of things. That will evolve overtime clearly. The government has a right to legislate what they want providing it doesn’t infringe, erode or subvert the rights of indigenous people.”
Marshalleck refers to the challenge as an attack on sovereignty. He explained that the outcome of this case may have varying implications.
Andrew Marshalleck Senior Counsel, Attorney for G.O.B.
“What it is in an assertion of customary rights and a right to what they call internal self-governance. It is going to impact all of us. The state of Belize is all of us and what it is saying is that when we elect representatives and give them the authority to make laws, they will have restrictions in what they can do in these villages.”
The Maya Leaders Alliance is assessing the damage caused by wildfires in the Toledo District. The M.L.A. has not been very vocal about the impact of the fires on the Maya villages. So today when reporters caught up with the M.L.A.’s spokesperson, Christina Coc, in Belize City, she was asked about the associations’ response.
Christina Coc
Christina Coc, Spokesperson for M.L.A.
“With regards to the wildfires, clearly you have seen the devastation. A lot of our communities have been impacted. We are in the process of completing the assessment of that damage. Our focus is on relief and recovery ensuring that for the next three to four months those who have lost their corn and milpa will have food, traditional food that their communities will provide through the aid as we are organizing to provide that relief. The association is funding and leading this relief effort and we are going to, fundamentally our priority is to provide food security within the next three to four months until we can have another crop of corn.”
Prime Minister John Briceño has also weighed in on the devastating wildfires that are affecting parts of southern and western Belize. Amid ongoing public discourse, there has been talk that the country should acquire a helicopter to provide aerial support for firefighting. But, is the P.M. down with purchasing a new chopper for that sole purpose? And where is the new NEMO minister on a supplementary budget for disaster relief?
Prime Minister John Briceño
Prime Minister John Briceño
“We are working on that and he’s working on a new budget and despite everything, we can‘t let the best be the enemy of the good. And in this sense, this issue about air support, air support, guys we don‘t even own a helicopter and for us to be able to say we‘re going to own a helicopter to be able to… let’s be real, let’s be realistic. What we are looking at is how we can organize this whole firefighting forest fires, how we’re going to fight them and it has been from top to bottom. And of the ideas, I think he is the deputy chair of APAMO and what he was saying is that we need to start from the community level, to start at the community level to give them some sort of training and a little bit of equipment so that in most instances we can contain it. We also have to look at controlled burning, something that has not been done that you burn your underbrush or your forest not when it is the hottest and we can get rid of some of the debris so that if there is a fire it’s not going to be, it’s not going to be huge and as destructive as what it was.”
Since the murder of businessman Ricardo Borja in 2023, a spotlight has been shone on massive real estate scams taking place across the country. This afternoon, the Minister of Natural Resources spoke at length on what’s been taking place with private real estate transactions that have resulted in the Government of Belize being cheated out of millions of dollars in revenue.
Cordel Hyde
Cordel Hyde, Minister of Natural Resources
“It’s scary when you consider that persons have died and quite possibly linked to these things. You‘re dealing with a different level of opportunism and different level of criminality and a different level of wickedness altogether and I don‘t know that you necessarily can liquidate that, can destroy that in the shortest possible time. I think it‘s about us trying to get our structures in place where we get it right about trying to have some regulations that will regulate these real estate cats because the truth of the matter is that they‘ve been having a free run at it for the longest time and these guys are so-called land agents and they also pretend to be attorneys and financial experts and all kinds of stuff and they are very clever, very smooth and savvy because they are able to convince very wealthy people to get off their money. I can tell you that in these cases, we‘ve had to collaborate, cooperate with the police and try to assist as best as we can with these investigations. We‘ve done our own internal investigation of lots of these accounts. In the Borja case, we‘ve reviewed over three hundred transaction instruments that Borja and his consulting company, I think it‘s J.C. Consulting or something, that they actually presented to the Lands Department. Eighty percent, damn near eighty percent of those were incomplete. They triggered some interaction, got an instrument number but they never followed through because they came, they triggered an interaction with the Lands Registry and through that process they are able to get what would be the relevant fees, the relevant duties that have to be paid but they don’t come back.”
