Over the past 2 weeks, the battle over the Commerce Bight Port has been making headlines. That's after the Briceno Administration took a motion to the House of Representatives on May 28 for parliament to consider and cancel the 25-year lease which the former UDP government granted to Recological Systems Limited.
As we've reported, the agreement was signed shortly before the 2020 general election, and it gave Recological permission to renovate and develop the Commerce Bight Port. The company was initially given the green light to run the abandoned Dangriga facility, but the Briceno Government is convinced that the agreement was a bad deal for the country and one that didn't get parliamentary approval. Last week, the Senate debated and confirmed the decision from the House to cancel Recological's lease, which meant that the decision was final.
Representatives of the company told our newsroom that they spent several hours today vacating the port, and after they removed all of their property from the facility's compound, they handed over the keys to the Belize Port Authority.
But, the company is making it clear that they are going to sue the Government over what they assert is an injustice committed against them as a private developer.
In a press release, the company says, quote, "RSL has been given notice to vacate the premises by the 14th June 2021. After consultation with our legal team and other stakeholders, we have decided to comply with their instructions…this action will certainly be resulting in legal action against the Belize Port Authority and the Government of Belize.
This was certainly not our intention, however, the disrespectful and bodacious manner in which GOB has and continues to abuse the rights of the company, have left us no other means of recourse..." End quote.
This evening, the company's project manager granted 7News a teleconference interview, and we asked about the pending legal battle:
Reporter
"The company seems almost apologetic that it has to take this step."
Breandon C. Raymond, Project Manager - RSL
"Certainly, it was not our intent. No investor would spend over 4 years moving towards a development to eventually end up in court. That's not the plan. We had plans to develop the facility and we feel that we certainly had the competency and the drive to really see Commerce Bight come to its true potential and so to arrive at this point we are being force to seek legal action. It's certainly not our intention, because at the end of the day there are no winners here, nobody doesn't win. The company doesn't win, the government doesn't win, the country doesn't win. We've had several letters sent to the government and various people within the administration and they have all gone unanswered and so just the manner in which the cancellation took place, it certainly leaves us with no other recourse as far as to seek legal action at this time."
Reporter
"Give us an idea as the amount of financial resources that you guys have expended from the time the lease was granted to today when you had to hand over the keys."
Breandon C. Raymond, Project Manager - RSL
"I certainly can't disclose that figure to you. Those are things that would play out in court, but certainly millions. You could just expect over 4 years for a development at this magnitude the amount of studies and works that went in to got us where we are right now. It just didn't happen overnight, so the company has invested quite substantially in arriving at this point to now be stop short of the goal."
We also asked the project manager about some of the biggest accusations which the Briceno Government has made against RSL's 25-year lease, back when the matter went to the House and the Senate.:
Reporter
"RSL got this contract days before a change in government, days before an election, which in their mind is a red flag."
Breandon C. Raymond, Project Manager - RSL
"RSL did not signed an agreement with the UDP and RSL did not signed an agreement with the PUP, we signed an agreement with the government of Belize and so as an investor we did all that we needed to do to secure the licenses and the lease to operate the port. We didn't miss any steps, we fulfilled all the requirements and that has happened over the past 3 years. January 2020, we were part of the RFP process in regards to the power plant and we were having meetings at Biltmore. A lot of people don't know all of the meetings and consultations that the company had been going through over the past years to arrive at where we are, so the application for port authority that was submitted from August, it's no control of the investor to say well it came to us in November. I mean those are things that we don't have any control over. I could just say as far as what the company has done to get to where we are now, we strongly feel that we follow the procedures, we followed the policies."
Reporter
"Another point that the parliamentarians try to make is that the revenue benefits that would go back to the government and people of Belize for its lease agreement with RSL - they were trying to suggest that the sum was paltry."
Breandon C. Raymond
"I think five thousand dollars has been thrown around quite a bit. That five thousand dollars - that is the application fee that you pay. That has been the laws of the country for the past 20 years. Anybody who got a port facility the application fee is five thousand dollars, so yes we paid that. But in addition to the application fee there is a rental fee which is $30,000 a year, in addition to 1% gross and revenues, in addition to all the GST, business taxes, social security - all the other benefits that accumulates from a project of this magnitude and so while that is so, we did not determine that figure either, but we were willing and open. we had a meeting with the Belize Port Authority, the board, where this same topic was discussed and they ask the company if we were open to come to the table to discuss or to renegotiate a new rental agreement or a new rental fee and we were completely open to that. So we weren't given that opportunity to get to the table to discuss, but there are terms in the agreements, in the lease, the agreement and lease were not a binding one that bound the government to the terms for 25 years."
"As a matter of fact, after 3 years I believe the Port Authority would have had the opportunity to inspect the investment that we've made and if it wasn't to their satisfaction they could have cancelled the lease immediately."
Reporter
"The suggestion was that you all have no history, no background history as a ports management company to even have been qualified to get the lease in the first place. What's your comment on that?"
Breandon C. Raymond
"Well, I could only speak for what I have seen. Certainly, we have engaged consultants as it relates to the development of the facility. Myself, I am an industrial engineer, 15 years experience in the country, felicities design and management. Mr. Martin, he runs an engineering company in South Africa, prior to migrating to Belize and amongst our team there are several different people with all different kinds of expertise. In these types of developments, the owners of the company rarely are the ones who are out there on the ground drawing designs and taking measurements. Of course you engage consultants in these developments and so it is nothing strange to see an owner that is who they are referring to - you outsourced these types of activities, so nonetheless the partners that we were involved with they bring a wealth of experience. Seaone is a highly reputable company in the US."
In its press release, the company thanks all their supporters who worked tirelessly with them in their efforts to reopen the port.
