The cruise port war is at a fever pitch tonight - as you may have seen from the flurry of ads for and against the Port of Magical Belize in this newscast. And while that is the airwar - on the ground - the forces united against the Port of Magical Belize continue to heave away at its parent company, Portico and, now, its development partner, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. RCCL signed an MOU with Portico a few months ago to build a 355 million US dollar cruise port - and tonight the Leader of the opposition has written to their corporate headquarters to say they should not have done so.
Shyne Barrow's 4 page letter is addressed to Jason Liberty, the President and CEO of the Royal Caribbean group. It says, quote, "both the former Prime Minister Dean Barrow and the former Attorney General of Belize, Michael Peyrefitte, publicly condemned the agreement as having been signed secretly by a rogue former Minister without lawful authority or Cabinet approval."
He adds, "I am bewildered as to why a corporation of your international standing and reputation did not question the bona fides of a contract signed in secret in the final days of the last administration, granting concessions - beyond the expectation of the most rapacious investor - to a shell company owned by two small-time businessmen without any track record of any significant development in Belize or elsewhere.
Mr. David Gegg, who is well-known to your corporation, is a small tour operator with a checkered history in Belize. Mr. Sharma operates a store in the Corozal Free Zone of Belize, which is a hotbed of illegal activity." End quote.
Barrow also warns Liberty of the quote, "excessive generosity of the fiscal incentives (which) should have been enough to put any serious U.S. investor, mindful of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, on notice that no Minister had the authority to sign such an Agreement."
He ends on a chilling note, saying, quote, "If you proceed with Portico under the thick clouds of suspected corruption that currently enshroud it, I will have no choice but to have my Government review and use all legal courses to remedy this matter when I'm elected as Prime Minister and Minister of Finance."
