And the Prime Minister is ready to run with the green light from the DOE and NEAC. When asked about the Belize Coalition to Save Our Natural Heritage which opposes the cruise terminal - the PM said you can't please everyone:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"With the NGO community, you could never get their first support. And that's it, right? If we are going to address it, whatever it is that they believe that is being based, but we're going to do the right thing."
"It is time for us to build a cruise port for Belize and a new container port. And we have to do it, but we have to do it right, protecting the environment as best as we can. There are several groups that are interested in making this investment in Belize."
"SSA Marine is one of them. They are one of the largest port developers in the world. And what I said, their parent company is BlackRock. That's all I said. But there are other groups like Global Port Holdings. I think they're out of Turkey. There's a group out of Mexico. There are different groups that want to come. But we could not and would not negotiate with anybody until we get the environmental clearance."
"Now that we get the environmental clearance, now that we get the environmental clearance, we have Nichols and Moffat, the same group that came up with the master plan. Now we're going to hire them to help us in setting up the terms of reference so then to be able to negotiate with these different groups and to see who is going to give the best deal for Belize."
"So that is the process."
