The revised Carnival contract complete with 12 clarification clauses - was signed on Friday, but for some stakeholders, there is still no clarity on the controversy over the $100 million project which will move to the Supreme Court tomorrow.
This afternoon, the Belize Tourism industry Association's executive board voted to go ahead with their legal challenge of the contract. BTIA's board members spent most of their day at the Central Bank conference room meeting with their Attorney Lois Young and Minister of Tourism Mark Espat and his Tourism Director Tracy Panton. But the BTIA Board could not be persuaded to desist from the legal challenge and BTIA President Lucy Fleming told us the board decision was to let the court decide.
Lucy Fleming, BTIA President
"What came out of the meeting is that we are basically endorsing our status quo. I had spoken to you earlier about that so we will go through with our judicial review and I really don't have anything more to report. You know you will know more as the case unfolds presumably as I will and the rest of us will."
Keith Swift,
So this despite the clarified contract, the BTIA board decided to go ahead with the judicial challenge?
Lucy Fleming,
"That's correct. There was a executive committee meeting today and it was decided that we would go through with our judicial review and we will proceed as such."
The first hearing in the application for judicial review takes place tomorrow morning before Justice Samuel Awich.