And while the sovereign cargo port is a subject of enduring controversy - cruise ports are an even more vexing issue! Three of them are buying for supremacy in the Belize District - but the debate has been raging for years, and cruise passengers are still being tendered in. Port Coral is the only one where construction is well underway, but, right now, the Port of Magical Belize seems to be the one favored by the government.
We say that because government is accepting their definitive agreement signed by one minister in the last days of the Barrow Administration and is now seeking to cement that by tabling fiscal incentives legislation for it in the house.
We asked the Acting Prime Minister about it and no matter how hard we pressed, he kept saying, legally, it's complicated:
Reporter
"Sir, we received reports that there is enabling legislation for the Port of Magical Belize which will be tabled at the next house meeting. Can you confirm and if so what's the motivation for this?"
Cordel Hyde, Acting Prime Minister
"Well, those matters are being considered indeed, but those matters will certainly become litigious matters and so government is well advised to seek and get legal advice so that they can move smartly on the matter, so that's all I'm going to say on that matter for now."
Reporter
"Is this paving the way for that port?"
Cordel Hyde, Acting Prime Minister
"If it ends up there, but we are not there yet. As I said the government is getting legal advice of the matter, because there are some legal persons who think it's a legitimate document and there are some who think its not. As you know how it goes with the legal persons; 2 different lawyers look at the same document and think 2 different things. But government is well advised to get it right."
Reporter
"If it goes through, there is a lot of dredging involved and in fact one of the partners in the project Boskalis is a dredging company, do you expect that it will be challenged by the Ashcroft Alliance?"
Cordel Hyde, Acting Prime Minister
"For sure. That's why I said these matters will become very litigious. These matters for sure end up with the government being hauled before the court. We get hauled before with smaller things with the Ashcroft group, so government has to be very careful as they proceed and we have to get advice and follow that advice."
Reporter
"Has the government taken advice whether the definitive agreement is binding? We asked this, because the former attorney general/ former ministerial chair of the UDP sub-committee on investment and the former prime minister have all attested that it did not have their cabinet's approval. Has your attorney general given an opinion on the validity?"
Cordel Hyde, Acting Prime Minister
"That's why I said we are getting legal opinion, because some legal experts say that it is a binding document and others say that its not. At the end of the day government will have to weigh those 2 opinions and make a determination on the way going forward considering whatever exposure will come with that."
Under the Definitive Agreement, which the Prime Minister has stated publicly that he accepts, government agreed to facilitate approvals and legislation granting tax and other exemptions and concessions.
