Belmopan’s $6M Hospital Land Purchase Under Scrutiny Amid Government Justifications

The six-million dollar land purchase by government for the new hospital in Belmopan continues to be a concern for many.  The question is why government would spend that kind of money when they had access to UB land which was initially said to be the building site.  Minister of Health, Kevin Bernard, explained that the acquisition was done through the Ministry of Finance, but did explain that after a deeper assessment, they found the area not suitable for the medical facility.  Today, Dr Osmond Martinez who was key in the 90-million dollar loan and negotiations with the Saudi Fund explained that he trusts the decision made by the government to relocate the proposed site.

Osmond Martinez, Minister of State, Ministry of Foreign Trade: “The main thing with investments is that you have to look at empirical data and scientific studies and if the scientific studies call for a decision then it’s important to note that a decision as hard as it may sound we will have to execute it because the investment is a lot of money. So whenever you have a huge investment that’s the reason why you would have feasibility studies, that is the reason why you will have experts to guide you and I am sure that the Ministry of Health has received all these studies and recommendations from the experts. So it’s important to be objective when you look at these things. Why ? Because like in Spanish we have a saying “Lo que comienza bien terminal bien.” Whatever you do good from beginning it ends well and so it’s important that when we do big investments that it’s done well from the beginning.”

The government had received the green light from Parliament last May in a loan motion presented at the House of Representatives.