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And we also asked the Minister of Sustainable Development what he thought, since the environmental clearance for Port of Magical Belize came from his ministry. Like his cabinet colleagues and former UDP ministers, his position is that the definitive agreement was one-sided, and agreed that former minister Erwin Contreras has no legal authority to sign it.
And as for the reports that the DA has caused a revolt in the Cabinet between the Minister who brought it into the big room - and those who pushed back against it, the media asked him about that too.
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"When I saw it and went through it, I thought that something was wrong, definitely. I think when all of a saw it for the first time, I wasn't privy to it before, but when I saw the pictures and I saw that the former minister had signed it, I said to myself, something must be wrong. When the news came out and I think even Prime Minister Barrow mentioned that it was not brought to their attention so that the former minister, in his view, did the wrong thing because it was not in his ministry to be able to have that authority to sign something that speaks about finance, especially."
"But let us recall that there was another agreement that was signed during their administration, and that was one that now we are working with because we have managed to to make different arrangements through the TNC agreement, where former minister of natural resources, Hugo Patt also signed and the part that deals with the land was okay, because he was the minister of lands, but he had no authority to say you do not have to pay for land taxes and stamp duty under it."
"So what Prime Minister Barrow said was right, but also he didn't mention that there were other agreements that they had signed that also had some illegality in it."
And if cruise ships begin docking at both Stake Bank and Port of Magical Belize, and there's an influx of tourists, will the Belize District be able to handle it? Can our jungles, caves, Maya Temples, and roadways handle a million tourists a year? That's what we asked the Minister.
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"I think that all reports we have to look at them very carefully. And I have always been one that even on the media and in the show, I will say that we have to look at the capacity that we have for the amount of cruise passengers that we have. I have always said that if the tourism industry is telling us for years that one type of tourism is better than the other, then maybe we should promote the other more than one."
"So if overnight tourism is better than cruise ship tourism, then that's the way we should go. But it is something that we have to plan. It can't can be a five year plan. It can't be a government of the day plan. It has to be a long term plan."
Reporter:
"I think their goal is for 1 million tourists annually. Do you think Belize can handle that capacity? If we have Portico and then we also have Stake Bank or whatever?"
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"I think we can for for that number, maybe more than that, we might not be able to, but we will have to work on other things like upgrading infrastructure, moving out from that port into Belize City, from Belize City spreading out to where the visitor sites are. We have to increase the number of visitor sites because we can't rely on the current number of visitors because those will not be sufficient."
"And if you over utilize them, then we have an overkill on those sites and we don't want that."
