AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums About Belize Nation New loans by the govt for roadwork

The House of Representatives has given permission for the Government of Belize to enter into two loan agreements for road infrastructure development. The first loan motion which was approved is for a consultancy which will prepare a feasibility study and detailed designs for the upgrading of the Northern Highway between the Airport road junction and the Haulover Bridge. The loan is for three hundred and fifty thousand US dollars and comes with a two year grace period. It is to be repaid in thirty two equal quarterly installments and carried an interest rate of two and a half percent per annum. The other loan agreement approved in Friday is with the Central American Bank for Economic Integration. It is in the sum of four point five million dollars, and the funds will be used to improve and rehabilitate the southern highway from its junction at mile fourteen to Jalacte village on the Belize-Guatemala border. The loan term is for twenty years and comes with a five year grace period. The loan carries a five point nine percent interest rate.

Patrick Jones

Thats just great lets borrow money for projects that do not help the economy and do not create jobs. The only thing this or the last government did successfully is borrow money that we can not pay back except by extreme hardship spread to everyone. I guess they are just not too smart.
Barrow cries, rightfully, about the super bond but has borrowed about another $500Million while in office. We must stop living off of borrowed money. If we borrow to create jobs and grow the tax base it benefits all and we dont mind paying the bill. Projects like these described only benefit a small group of people but all must pay. This is wrong thinking. We need fiscal responsibility, not party politics. M.

Loan paves the way for 23 miles of Southern Highway

A forty-seven million dollar agreement was signed between the government and CISCO Construction Limited on February twenty-eighth for the paving of twenty-three miles of the Southern Highway, leading to the Guatemalan border. Funds for that project are expected to be provided through a loan from the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, the OPEC Fund for the International Development and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI). The CABEI portion of the loan agreement was just approved by the House of Representatives at last Friday's meeting. The loan of four point five million dollars has a term of twenty years at five point nine percent interest per annum. According to Prime Minister Dean Barrow, the Northern Highway will also be upgraded.

Dean Barrow

"We're looking at trying to repair the Northern Highway, trying to widen it, trying to do proper drainage between the Haulover, from the Haulover Bridge going up and that's what the one of the loan motions is about, the other is with respect to the Jalacte Road Project and that's underway with the Northern Highway it is only for technical assistance this first amount in terms of the Jalacte Motion that started because we've already been able to draw down, since that is being co-financed by CABEI and the loan motion that we passed today had to do with the CABEI portion of the loan because OPEC is a part of the co-financing arrangement and we've already been able to draw down on the OPEC financing, that is in process that is in train even as we speak in fact I'm told that uh CISCO Construction has given about three hundred and thirty-odd jobs to villagers in the areas a consequence of that project having been commenced."

The other loan of three hundred and fifty US dollars was approved on Friday to finance a feasibility study and designs for the upgrading of the Northern Highway from the Haulover Bridge to the junction of the old airport road. That loan is to be repaid in thirty-two quarterly payments at two and a half percent interest per annum.

Channel 5

APPROVAL GIVEN FOR LOAN MOTION FOR ROAD REHABILITATION

Also during today's sitting the House of Representatives gave approval to a loan motion authorizing the government to borrow an additional eight million US dollars from the OPEC Fund for International Development. The money will be used for road rehabilitation purposes, namely the paving of the road from Golden Stream along the Southern Highway all the way to the Jalacte Junction near the Guatemalan border. It is a total of thirty two point eight kilometers. The OPEC Fund for International Development has previously committed financing to the government of Belize in the sum of three point seven million US dollars for the partial financing of the project. The loan is for a twenty year period, with a five year grace period and comes at a rate of three point three percent per annum on the principal amount withdrawn. The schedule calls for thirty semi-annual repayments. According to the loan motion, the first loan repayment will be on August 15, 2016.

LOVEFM

Reference the road down to the Guatemala border (but not across it), does anyone know what the purpose of this road is?

So agrarian communities can get their goods to market and have better roads to and from

And HOW many millions of dollars are we paying so that farmers have a paved road to bring their goods to market?
seems to me there are many much better uses for that money, getting kids into school for example. there are many many children without schools. surely that is a higher priority than getting the bumps out of the road for the farmers.