The public re-acquisition of the Port of Belize is complete. After it got 45 million US dollars into its account today - the Ashcroft Alliance finally signed off on the sale. So, tonight, one week after being taken to the House of Representatives, the Port of Belize is back in public hands. Returning CEO Arturo Tux Vasquez went in this afternoon at 2:30 to take over from the ousted Ashcroft Alliance CEO Ted Peralta.
Vasquez takes over a Port in a state of serious disrepair and neglect. The Ashcroft alliance refused to invest in the bulk cargo expansion until and unless their Waterloo cruise port proposal was approved - and it never was. Pictures circulating on social media today - show vehicles bogged in crater like holes.
Ashcroft has said there was no business case for cargo expansion without cruise ship revenue. But, government says that - even in its present woeful state - the Port makes profits of 12.7 million dollars annually.
Government will now have to move quickly to inject capital into the Port - and today we asked the Prime Minister what the priorities are- including the radiancy payment to the stevedores:
Jo
"The takeover 1. takeover of the port of Belize was finalized today. The new board of directors and CEO inherit an asset that is seriously under capitalized and suffered from years of neglect."
"Also the stevedores our clamoring for their redundancy payment relating to sugar. What would you say to keep the public's expectations realistic?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Well first of all we have what we call an interim CEO and an interim board of directors. What is important for us is that as soon as we get in we need to get the work done. There's a lot of work to be done we know that the assets have been deteriorating over the years we know that the receiver and also the previous owners did very little to take care of the assets so as being the National port of Belize the most important port of Belize, as a government we felt it was important that if the then owners were not interested in investing in the port I think it was best then for us to sit down and negotiate a settlement for us to be able to take over the port. We did not, one, go down the line of nationalization we have seen what happened with the previous government in 2009 when they nationalized BTL and it was fight after fight and the lawyers made millions of dollars and we wanted to avoid that and then to ensure that we can find a settlement that would be in the interest of Belize and we believe that is what we have accomplished."
"Now the Stevedores they need to understand that we are just taking over this company and we need to try to see how we can fix it and I am sure that the interim board will probably find the time to be able to meet with them shortly to talk and address some of their issues."
