UDP’s Collet Area Representative, Patrick Faber, is “LMAO-ing” at the decision announced by the United Democratic Party’s Central Executive Committee. The committee announced its decision to declare Tracy Panton, Patrick Faber, John Saldivar, and Beverly Williams “constructively resigned” from the United Democratic Party (UDP) “due to repeated violations of the party’s constitution. Specifically, these violations pertain to Article 5(1)(b)(c), Article 5(5)(a)(b)(c)(d), and Article 7(11).”
In response, Faber posted on Facebook, “The longest serving member of parliament, former chairman, deputy party leader/ deputy PM and former party leader… do you really think you can constructively resign me? LMAO!!”
On Tuesday, Tracy Panton and Beverly Williams submitted a petition to the United Democratic Party (UDP) requesting the recall of Party Leader Moses Shyne Barrow. Chairman Michael Peyrefitte rejected the petition.
The Government of Belize is compulsorily acquiring a disputed twenty-three-acre extension of Stake Bank Island. The news made headlines on Tuesday evening when a statement was issued following a cabinet meeting during which G.O.B.’s move was finalized. Well, tonight the Feinstein Group, the original proprietor of the island, says it will challenge G.O.B.’s compulsory acquisition. In a late afternoon release, the company referred to the decision as an unfair and improper high-handed interference in a private sector dispute that is live before the High Court. The release outlines several reasons why the Feinstein Group is challenging the acquisition. Among them, the group asserts that G.O.B. is siding with Honduran businessmen of questionable business practices. They are referring to the company out of Honduras that acquired the sixty-two million dollars loan associated with the Stake Bank cruise port project back in May after the project went into receivership. The release further asserts that these businessmen possess no experience in developing cruise ship port facilities. The Feinstein Group says it is aware that the decision to acquire the twenty-three acres came on the heels of a recent private meeting between one of the Honduran businessmen and Prime Minister John Briceño. This morning, we heard from Prime Minister John Briceño on the decision to take over the twenty-three acres on Stake Bank Island. Here is what he had to say.
Prime Minister John Briceño
Prime Minister John Briceño
“First of all, well, it’s like what you said, how you can compare oranges with apples. There are two different instances. In the first instance with the issue of the land for the hospital, there was a buyer and a seller. They met together, they negotiated one, had one higher price, they a lower price. They negotiated and then they settled on a price. On the Stake Bank land, as you all know this, there’s a legislation that was passed by the UDP whereby we deemed this project of national importance. And now that it seems that the, between the different investors, they have been having, issues. That project has been at a standstill. We have, I think, approximately two hundred and seventy million dollars. But because there is a dispute with the land, that project cannot be finished. And if you look at the numbers for the cruise lines, they’re going down, we need to be able to finish that project. We believe that as a government, what we did is first to put the first notice of acquisition. What does that trigger? It triggers then the owner to come to government and to say okay, this is my land and they negotiate a price. If a price, a suitable price cannot be worked out then we go to the second stage when there is compulsory acquired and then the courts take over after that. So it’s a simple issue.”
Of note, the prime minister was rushing off as the media approached him to get an interview at an event in Belize City. We did, however, get to ask whether the compulsory acquisition of lands on Stake Bank Island will cost Belizean taxpayers, and if so, then how much? Here is more from his explanation of the acquisition.
Prime Minister John Briceño
“Well, the problem is not with the center part. The problem is the area that was dredged around the island with only a two-hundred-meter opening for the land. And if we want to finish that project, then that land is essential as it is right now because no work is taking place. I’m told that probably as much as five acres have already been washed away, so we really need to move with a sense of urgency.”
Paul Lopez
“How much will this cost taxpayers?”
Prime Minister John Briceño
“It will cost taxpayers not one single cent, and why do we say that? When that was brought up to the Cabinet, the Cabinet then said the only way we’d consider this is if there’s an indemnity agreement. That when this is settled by the courts, if we go to the courts, then the investors they’re the ones that is going to be responsible to pay for that. And also apart from them just sending an indemnity we also have the financial backing. There’s a deposit in the government’s account as a down payment, plus also from another financial institution that will be responsible for the payment. So that’s there’s nothing much more to add to it.”
Prime Minister John Briceño was unwilling to speak any further on the six-point-nine-million-dollar hospital land purchase in Belmopan. He says the experts already spoke on Tuesday and answered all the questions. So, when he was asked whether the government will consider reversing the deal, he said, we have moved on.
Reporter
“Amidst the social and physical protests about the hospital land that’s been going on will the government consider moving it back to the UB land, especially since Godfrey Smith has said that you could change the location on the land?”
Prime Minister John Briceño
Prime Minister John Briceño
“Well, I think honestly guys, if we were to do that, it would still cost us millions of dollars because a sale has been consumed. There’s a contract and any lawyer that’s worth its salt will tell you there’s a contract, unless the seller would want to come and say you know what I want back my money. Even if you’re to ask, so I think we have moved on. I think we’ve answered all the questions. The technical people have come on board and explained as to why they preferred this position. So, I don’t have any more to comment on that.”
There is a shortage of primary and secondary school teachers in some districts ahead of the new school year. In some cases, schools have placed advertisements for vacancies they hope can be filled soon after classes resume on Monday. Teachers have resigned for several reasons, including better paying jobs, teaching opportunities closer to home. In one instance, the Belize National Teachers’ Union blamed the ministry for not having sufficient staff on hand to process the volumes of certificate for teachers who have completed the requisite number of hours of training. News Five has reached out to the Ministry of Education for a response to the problem. Today, Chief Executive Officer, Dian Maheia explained that the requirement for teachers to complete a hundred and twenty hours of continuous professional development over the course of five years, to renew their license, is one that has been in place for several years. What’s new is the fact that it is being enforced.
Dian Maheia, Chief Exec. Officer, Min. of Education
“Teachers who receive their licenses in 2019 are now having to renew. It’s five years later, so we, by our accounts estimate that there’s some twenty-three hundred teachers. It’s in that range – I’m sorry – I don’t have the exact number, but it’s a number in that range. About twenty-three hundred teachers across the country who will have their licenses expiring August 31, 2024, what we’ve seen from our work is that we have about twenty-one hundred of those teachers who have completed the requirements, and their licenses have been renewed and processed. It’s like eighty-eighty percent of them. There’s another group. That’s about nine percent, I think it’s something like two hundred or so or a little bit less. Those are in process still. They’re either being reviewed still or the teachers are completing the hundred and twenty-hour assignment. For whatever reason, those are in process from the numbers that we have the indication that we have. There’s only about three percent of teachers who have not submitted applications for their license renewal. At this time, we’ve been working in collaboration with the BNTU. They’ve been very consistent in updating their surveys and sending to us at the ministry the lists of teachers who have questions, concerns. Regarding the reports that they’ve gotten from the TLI or not gotten from the TLI so that with the list of names that we get from the BNTU, our respective units are doing the reviews and the checks so that we make sure that if there’s if there’s something that we’re missing but the union is getting feedback from that particular teacher that we’re trying to respond to ensure that we’re, responding to the needs. I think it’s like between 80 to 90 percent of the workshop offerings that are being given right now and the ministry’s offerings are free teachers do have options to do CPDs from other providers and some of those other providers do charge when, when we started the T.L.I as a platform to offer CPD. Three years ago, the very act of starting the T.L.I really review revolutionized how professional development was being offered for the first time. Teachers didn’t have to travel. They didn’t have to, you know, physically leave where they were. To go to sit in classrooms in other places for eight hours a day for five hours a week, only two weeks of the year. So teachers have had opportunities over the past few years to engage in different kinds of courses, and at different times of the year. And in general, what we’ve seen in feedback from the majority of teachers is that they have made use of the varied forms and the times in which they were able to access those CPDs.”
Maheia explained that the ministry has made alterations to ensure that the certificates are processed as quickly as possible so that teachers can receive their licenses. Furthermore, in respect of the shortage of teachers created by teachers migrating or moving to other fields of work, there’s not much that the ministry can do. C.E.O. Maheia assured us that there are also newly trained teachers who will be looking for teaching jobs and can fill the posts.
Dian Maheia, Chief Executive Officer, Min. of Education
“What we’ve recognized is that and this has been over the past few months, we’ve recognized where there have been bottlenecks. Indeed, there have been challenges within the system and. Within the ministry itself, we have made adjustments. We have made changes in some of our offices. We have increased staff, um, some temporary personnel. We’ve, deployed people with different responsibilities to try to ensure that some processes recognizing that. There would be a really intense period now leading to the end of August and to the opening of school, um, because we would have over 2000 teachers who would need to renew licenses. We made some adjustments already. And so I think the recognition that there have been bottlenecks is accurate. We recognize that as well the union knows because we’ve sat in conversations and we’ve talked about it. We made commitments to adjust staffing and procedures and we’ve done those things so that we could it. So we could process a little bit faster, and we could try to move, um, more efficiently. So, yes, we’ve recognized, we’ve made adjustments and we’re continuing to process as quickly as possible. The truth is that there are there are vacancies right now. The data that we’ve collected shows that there are vacancies right now. Um, for example, with the secondary level, there’s vacancies for part-time as well as full-time positions, looking at both government and government aided. What we see is that from the point that was made earlier, there is, there is a very large vacancy for teachers of English. That’s where the biggest gap is right now. We recognize that. So that is a real situation right now in secondary schools. We’re trying to see how we can support the management with that. The primary school situation is that from the data that we have gathered as recently up to this morning, we’re gathering data is that while there are some vacancies in the primary school primary schools across the system, most of those, to be honest, are pending approvals from the ministry, which are expected to be coming within these days right here. We all know the reality that the Ministry of Education spends the lion’s share of its budget on paying teacher salaries. They – while we hear and appreciate every teacher who feels that he or she is underpaid, the reality is that this ministry is not in a position to say, oh, you know, we can do anything to make teachers’ salary is competitive right now compared to anybody else. When you look at teacher salaries that are being paid here compared to other countries, Belize’s teachers are not poorly, not so badly off. It’s not just happening here in Belize. It’s happening across the world. We have Belizean teachers in other Caribbean countries. With the way that CSME works, technically, we can have other teachers from other countries come here as well.”
On Tuesday, the Belize City Council issued a release notifying the public that vending along the carnival route is strictly prohibited on carnival day. Shortly following the announcement, public outcry flooded social media. In response, Citco’s Communications Manager, Michelle Smith told News Five that vending is allowed on reserved spaces and private property. Today, we spoke with Mayor Bernard Wagner for further clarification.
Bernard Wagner
Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City
“Vending is allowed. There is no issue there. No vending will be on the street where the carnival is taking place, but we have areas off the street, off street, that vendors will be allowed to work, to sell. I would suggest that they contact our PR department in that respect. But we have a lot of reserve areas in the city. That stretch and vending will be allowed on the areas that are not on the exact street that the carnival. Take for instance, Princess Margaret Drive, you’ll have one side of the street being utilized by the carnival, so the other side of the street will be allowed for vending. There’s no issue there. I think it was just communication, and if you have an issue and you don’t understand our communication, You call the city council and get the pertinent information. We have to get out of this, get pon social media and start to rant and rave. And there are ways how you go about discussing these issues and we never said that there would be no vending. We said that on the route, on the exact street that the carnival is is in held, you can’t vend.”
Reporter
“Alright, just to clear up on this concept, can you tell us a little bit about how you guys came to this decision? “
Bernard Wagner
“No, It’s a whole sort of it’s a lot of collaboration. The Carnival Association does have some restrictions in terms of BTL parking, we have certain covenants with those vendors in that area. And so we don’t want to jeopardize their ability to earn income in the park era. So we have said that era along the Digi park is a no vending era. So that allows those vendors in the park to be able to earn some measure of income for that day.”
In addition to CitCo’s announcement that no vending will be allowed along the carnival route, City Hall also announced that parking on the streets or sidewalks along the route is also forbidden. Mayor Wagner explains that despite the tradition of tailgating to view the parade, it is a public safety hazard and cannot be allowed. Here’s what he had to say.
Britney Gordon
“Sir, in regards to the no parking rule, so people that park their cars and sit in the back of it to watch, that won’t be allowed at all. People that are in the back of their pickup trucks, none of that, that either?”
Bernard Wagner, Mayor, Belize City
“We have to do these things here with order. People da Belize, we tend to like disorder. Once there is order, we rant and rave. We love disorder as a community. We’ve got to change our culture. We are saying, listen you can’t have vehicles blocking the road to the carnival. We need the police to be able, law enforcement to be able, Move around in that era pretty freely. So you can’t have vehicles parking along the entire road. The other side where the carnival is not being held have to be cleared because that’s a road for police emergency. So people can come in their vehicle, but they’ll have to find alternative parking along the alternate streets.”
We also got input from Commissioner of Police Chester Williams on the regulations outlined by the Belize City Council for the new carnival route. ComPol Williams repeated that vehicles obstructing the carnival route will be towed and vendors along the route will be removed. He says the police department has enough personnel to ensure a safe carnival weekend.
Chester Williams
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
“The police have a job to do and we try as best as we can to discharge our duties without any complaint and work around whatever obstacles that may arise. And so the September celebrations committee, which is chaired by the honorable Minister of Education have decided on a route for the carnival and the police are going to follow that route. We have done our groundworks in terms of running the route and to see what challenge or challenges that we may have on carnival day to be able to ensure that the carnival moves from its starting point to where it is going to come to an end without any hindrance. And so, we believe that we will be able to police the event without any incident. Police officers will be along the route, so we’re not going to depend on city traffic. Yes, if they are there to assist we welcome assistance. But we do have the manpower to ensure that we cover the entire route of the carnival. And as well as to have police officers who are going to accompany the carnival to make sure that it’s safe and no incident occurred during the carnival itself.”
Paul Lopez
“Will you guys be out there removing vendors if they decide to sell along the way?”
Chester Williams
“Well, certainly the vendors cannot sell on the street. If they’re parked, if they’re on the, not the sidewalk, but if they’re parked on the edge of the street without hindering the sidewalk, they can stay there. But no vending will be allowed on the sidewalk or the streets. The day before the carnival, the police will run the road with our tow truck. And any vehicles seen parked along the road, on the road, the owners will be asked to move it. If they don’t move it, or if we cannot find an owner, then we’ll tow it away.”
According to research conducted by Doctor Harold Young in 2019, there are as many as fourteen hundred active gang members in Belize City. These groups of young men prey on each other often in a struggle for turf in the illegal drug trade. The wanton violence has seen deadly shootings in broad daylight when gang members are caught straying out of their neighborhoods. Since they have become part of our reality, the streets have not been as safe as they once were. These young men, many of them unemployed, use their fraternity to also target regular civilians to rob, commit home invasions, assault, and murder. In this edition of our Five Point Breakdown, News Five’s Marion Ali looks at gangs, why people join them, and intervention programs to guide other youths away before they are led astray. Here’s that report.
Marion Ali, Reporting
In the Old Capital, a murder scene usually means the work of a gang taking revenge on a rival street gang for a previous killing or shooting. It has been this way since the mid-nineties when the original Bloods and Crips gangs were formed. The rivalry between the two made certain streets at certain hours more dangerous to walk. But what are street gangs in the first place?
What Are Street Gangs?
A street gang is defined as a group of persons who repeatedly engage in criminal activities that impact the order and safety of public places in particular. But why do men and youths join gangs?
Why Do People Join Gangs?
Brandon Baptist
Brandon Baptist, Gang Member
“I deh pahn the street for quite some while, I get caught up in the jail a lot of times. I was with the police. I always deh pahn news. Everybody knows me, Brandon Baptist, right?”
Karl Augustine
Karl Augustine, Belize City Resident
“When I was 16 years old, because of poverty and lack of leadership and, you know, I didn’t have that father figure in my life. So, you know, I ended up on the street. One of my friends, um, he passed away by gang violence.”
Karl Augustine says he was never a member of any gang, but the life he led as a youth created the same impact for him. And as Baptist alluded to, his time with the gang led him to incarceration. Now, both men are trying to turn around their lives.
Karl Augustine
“I decided to leave that lifestyle behind and I joined the volunteer BDF. And from the volunteer BDF, I spent like two years in the volunteer BDF and then joined the regular force. And, during my time in the regular force, um, there was different options because it’s just not being only a soldier. Also, they give you like different opportunities to become a mechanic or electrician. So, um, they asked me if I wanted to take a trade, so I picked the trade. And that’s how I learned about electricity.”
Difficulties in Leaving
Sometimes it’s difficult to leave.
Marion Ali
“Did you get threats, things like that?”
Timmy Stamp
“Yes, yoh get threats. They threaten yoh and different things like that.”
Brandon Baptist
“Every time I try to do something positive, I fall back. But I still fight it.”
Marion Ali
There are a few individuals who have joined street gangs and have left successfully. The next person we spoke with shared his testimony of a life of crime and violence. Fifty-seven-year-old Timmy Stamp joined the KGB Bloods in the early nineties. For him it took family life to take him away from the streets.
Timmy Stamp
Timmy Stamp, Former Gang Member
“We that we start this. make it get big like this. Yeah, we totally start it. You because I was in blood. We was KGB. I thank God that I don’t have to kill nobody. You know what I mean? Um, yeah, Rob, you name it. We gone through it. You know what I mean? But otherwise we don’t have to kill nobody. And I thank God for that. You know what?
Marion Ali
“What eventually opened your eyes for you to decide, you know what, this enough for me and I have to exit.”
Timmy Stamp
“Well, my beautiful wife when I meet she done like, you know, I wanted to take her out to different places and can’t ker she no way. And I cyant go no way.. Then I have a new daughter and different things that I want to do better today. You know something. So therefore I ask God like change my lifestyle and you know, get me away from this.”
Stamp opened his own business, first a fruit shop, which transitioned into a grocery shop he now owns on Dean Street. He showed us scars he suffered while in the gang. To help steer tomorrow’s leaders away from that path and worse possible outcomes, he conducts evening sessions and has field trips for children from the area.
Timmy Stamp
“We have evening classes that we do with them, you know, teach them to read, spell, math, and things like that. We get up on different trips, you know, just make them know their country beliefs, you know, I think we need more things like dende.”
The Role of Intervention Programs
Stamp and other community leaders get support from the Leadership Intervention Unit, headed by Dominique Norales.
Dominique Norales
Dominique Norales, Chair, L.I.U
“You have Mr. Timmy Stamp who runs after school program. You have Stix who runs Days of Healing. Miss Olga who runs an after-school program in her front yard. Um, other, other community groups, neighborhood watch groups who have, um, really been doing that nuanced work that we, we can’t have, we can’t do.”
The L.I.U works with various organizations, agencies, institutions and units to divert troubled or at-risk youths through channels that can help improve their lives.
Dominique Norales
“That work, first, you know, involves collecting some information on them, um, the neighborhoods they come from, and children they have. When they would have dropped out of school, which is a situation most of them have gone through for several reasons. And then we, um, put them on work teams, which are based in different parts of Belize City. That work is supported by the Belize City Council, where we try to coordinate, um, what sort of beautification work needs to be done in communities. Appended to the work program is also the TOBAL vocational training, um, that we engage our clients in. Um, so some of them are enrolled in school as well, which happens two times a week, um, every week for three to four months depending on holidays and stuff like that. And then those persons by and large are also engaged in other trainings.”
It is trainings like this that Brandon Baptist and Karl Augustine are also engaging youths in the Lake Independence Area in, to ensure that most of their waking hours are spent in positive activities. Augustine, who is a BDF soldier, says their background in electrical work complimented the program he wanted to manage.
Karl Augustine
“A lot of people think that. People from the Lake Independence are just criminals, or when people heard about um, Lake High, or St. Martin era, people would think that, it’s just violence people, but it’s nothing like that. You know, there’s actually good people here, and people who are willing to help other people, and willing to change their life, if people would have given them the opportunity to do so. Some of the trainees. Come up to me and they tell me, Mr. Carl, look man, my phone got, the wire got damaged and the skill that, the way that you show me how to connect the wires together, it’s the same thing that I did and the phone started to work.”
Brandon Baptist
“They got a lot of youth there, you know, they go to school, a lot of youth where they try out there, and then they end up in a gang world or da violent world soh we have to stop that before that happen then soh wi give them wa opportunity fi come learn a lee trade.”
Making The Bold Step Out
Dominique Norales says the L.I.U also works with youths who slip and with gang members who walk and show that they really want reform. For those who want change like Stamp did thirty seven-years ago, the challenges will be there but faith rules everything.
Timmy Stamp
“Remember da God run things, nuh deh. Da God run things. I just put all my faith and my trust in God.”
