When institutions are sidelined and expertise ignored, the real structure collapsing isn’t concrete — it’s public trust.

By: Omar Silva: Editor/Publisher

National Perspective Belize

www.nationalperspectivebz.com

Belize City: Wednesday 8th October 2025

In the long and tangled saga of Belize’s public works {MIDH}, few stories reveal as much about the erosion of professional integrity and institutional independence as the controversy surrounding the Belcan Bridge replacement project.

What began in 2022 as a structured engineering initiative under the Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing (MIDH) has turned into a political and ethical quagmire — involving claims of design plagiarism, ministerial interference, foreign funding maneuvering, and a growing sense that national expertise is being sidelined in favor of political spectacle.

1. How It All Began: A Legitimate National Project

The Belcan Bridge replacement was initially part of a larger rehabilitation plan for the George Price Highway, which included both the Belcan and Swing Bridge.

The MIDH, led by Minister Julius Espat, contracted NARCO Consultants Ltd. — a reputable regional civil engineering firm — as lead consultant, and Matus & Matus Engineering Ltd. (M&M) as its local sub-consultant.

These two firms produced detailed designs, feasibility studies, environmental assessments, and structural plans, all peer-reviewed by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the MIDH’s own Project Execution Unit.

By mid-2023, procurement for construction was already underway. Engineers viewed the design as ready for tender and implementation — until political winds shifted direction.

2. The Sudden Political Detour

According to MIDH’s Chief Engineer, Evondale Moody, it was during the tender process that he received unexpected instructions:

The Ministry of Economic Development, operating under the Prime Minister’s direct authority, had secured “alternate funding” from Taiwan for the project.

With that, the Belcan Bridge was quietly removed from MIDH’s jurisdiction and handed to the Belize City Council — a municipal body that has never built a single bridge.

Moody described the move as “strange and appalling”, emphasizing that all bridge construction in Belize has always fallen under MIDH’s national engineering portfolio.

In his words:

“For the entire time I’ve served — over 28 years — every bridge has been implemented by the Ministry of Works, now MIDH. None have been implemented by any other agency. So, this decision is unusual and, to me, deeply concerning.”

3. The Technical Hand-Off: A Risky Transfer

When MIDH was instructed to relinquish control, it handed over all project files — including design reports, feasibility studies, cost estimates, and environmental clearances — to the Belize City Council, but only in PDF format to prevent tampering.

MIDH specifically refused to release the AutoCAD files, which contain editable blueprints, warning that such files could be manipulated or misused and that the proprietary rights of the design could be compromised.

Despite this caution, the Ministry of Economic Development overruled MIDH and ordered the release of the AutoCAD files.

This is the moment where engineering ethics met political convenience — and the integrity of Belize’s technical institutions began to fracture.

4. The Foreign Firm and the Plagiarism Storm

Once the project landed at City Hall, the Belize City Council (CITCO) — using Taiwanese funding — hired a foreign firm, reportedly of Lebanese origin, to supervise and “improve” the bridge design.

That firm claimed that the documents received from MIDH were “incomplete, unsuitable for construction, and lacking key reports.” On that basis, they reissued “supplementary” design documents and billed almost US $900,000 for their services.

Engineer Roque Matus, whose firm M&M Engineering had co-authored the original design under MIDH, immediately cried foul. He accused the foreign firm of plagiarizing his work and passing it off as their own.

In response, the Association of Professional Engineers of Belize (APEB) issued a stern statement condemning any act of plagiarism, misrepresentation, or unauthorized use of professional engineering work, declaring that such actions violate both intellectual property and ethical principles of the profession.

5. The Legal and Ethical Lines

At the heart of the controversy lies a crucial distinction: ownership vs. authorship.

The Government of Belize (GOB), as the client, owns the design because it paid for it.

But that does not give it the right to allow another firm to re-stamp, alter, or rebrand that design without crediting the original engineers.

Even Minister Julius Espat, though loyal to Cabinet discipline, conceded the point:

“The government owns the design because it paid for it. But you can’t put your stamp on it and say you did it. You must acknowledge who the designer is.”

That acknowledgment never happened.

Instead, a foreign firm now controls the design phase of a national bridge, while the ministry that created it — and the local engineers who built it — have been cut out.

6. A Bridge Without a Builder

The decision to make the Belize City Council the executing agency defies both logic and precedent.

The City Council lacks the equipment, engineering personnel, and institutional experience required for major civil works. It does not own heavy pile drivers, cranes, or the technical staff necessary for hydrological or structural modelling — all of which are standard for bridge construction.

It is as though a municipal road repair unit were suddenly tasked with building an international-grade structure across the Belize River.

Yet this is the reality: the Belize City Council is now responsible for a multimillion-dollar national bridge — a project outside its legal and technical scope.

7. Brewing Legal Battles and Institutional Fallout

Behind closed doors, the storm intensifies:

• Matus & Matus Engineering is reportedly preparing legal action for design infringement and breach of professional attribution.
• MIDH engineers express deep frustration that their completed design was used, modified, and repackaged under another entity’s banner.
• The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development has gone silent, refusing to explain whether the Taiwanese financing required that the project be implemented by a municipal body rather than the state’s engineering authority.
• The Belize City Mayor, lacking engineering expertise, continues to promote the project as a municipal milestone — while quietly depending on foreign supervision.

This dynamic has given rise to what insiders’ call “an engineering coup disguised as civic progress.”

8. What’s the Use of MIDH?

When a government ministry created precisely to oversee national infrastructure is excluded from its core mandate, the question becomes unavoidable:

What is the use of the Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing if the Prime Minister can decide, at will, which bridges it will or will not build?

By reassigning such projects to politically favoured entities, Prime Minister John Briceño effectively centralizes control — not to improve efficiency, but to control credit, funding channels, and contracts.

This pattern is evident:

• The Haulover Bridge, a model of professional collaboration, was built by Matus & Matus under MIDH supervision with foreign consultation.
• The Belcan Bridge, however, has been politically rerouted to a municipal government for reasons that remain opaque.

The result: institutional paralysis, ethical confusion, and a dangerous precedent where political authority overrules professional responsibility.

9. The Bigger Danger: Erosion of Engineering Sovereignty

Belize’s engineers are not just fighting for recognition; they are defending national technical sovereignty.

Each time a foreign consultant replaces local expertise, Belize loses another layer of professional independence — the ability to design, build, and maintain its own infrastructure with integrity.

If this pattern continues, the country’s engineers may find themselves reduced to spectators in their own nation’s development, their work co-opted by political whim or foreign agenda.

10. Conclusion: A Bridge Over Troubled Power

The Belcan Bridge controversy is more than a bureaucratic mix-up. It’s a symbol of institutional decay, where political convenience trumps competence, and foreign supervision replaces national capacity.

What should have been a unifying infrastructure project has instead become a case study in governance gone astray — where the bridge being dismantled is not made of steel and concrete, but of trust, ethics, and national pride.

In the end, the lesson is simple:

When politics builds bridges, it often burns institutions.