MET Responds to Concerns Over File Disposal Incident

Public alarm erupted after government files were discovered being burnt in an open area on Thursday. The Ministry of Economic Transformation (MET) confirmed the documents were old and audited but acknowledged that proper disposal protocols were not followed.

In a statement issued this morning, the ministry clarified that the files burnt dated back to 2010–2012 and had already been verified by auditors as no longer relevant. “The files that were being disposed of on Thursday have been physically verified by auditors and date back to 2010-2012. They have no relevance to any ongoing project or initiative,” the ministry stated.

Footage of the incident showed a trailer from the Resilient Rural Belize (RRB) project at the site. The ministry explained that while the RRB project owns the only ministry trailers, they were merely lent to the MET for transportation purposes.

“Yesterday was one of those occasions that the Ministry borrowed the vehicle and trailer for their own purposes, unrelated to the work of RRB. To reiterate, yesterday’s incident has nothing to do with RRB and the files that were disposed of are MET files and have no affiliation to RRB,” it said.