Belize City Mayor Speaks on Council’s Finances

As Bernard Wagner and his slate of city councilors are going around the city campaigning, he says that he is hoping that Belizeans would remember the financial situation and state of morale that existed at the City Council when he took office.  Wagner has boasted that during the Covid pandemic the council did not terminate staff members nor did the council cut salaries.  Love News understands that the staff at the city council are looking forward to a salary increase in the coming weeks.

Bernard Wagner, Mayor of Belize City: “As a municipality we faced down COVID and so that really set you back in your capabilities to get things done. Once you are not functioning on all cylinders then your revenue starts to shrink, our revenue shrink from what it was to like 52 percent of what it really was during the years 2020 – 2021. And then 2022 we started to make a little in-road back into seeing the type of flows that we require but then came Hurricane Lisa. I always joke with the deputy and my team I said when we came into office six years ago in 2018, we were the rebirth brand. They said we were the real birth and there were the pundits on the next side saying no this is no rebirth those guys are still birth, they will die soon, in six months they will falter, they will fall and now it has been six years and we have shown the type of perseverance, the type of resilience that I believe no other council have really faced. Just facing COVID alone, having no blueprint, having no clear direction, there is no playbook, you have to be able to navigate. We don’t cry, we never cry, we always ensure that we have to make the little that we get work for us.”