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And while the government has a lot of work untangling the webs of the definitive agreement, and tabling new legislation, one minister feels they could have avoided a lot of headache if the PUP had come out of the governmental gates with a cruise ship policy back when they were elected.
Minister Julius Espat told us today that he wasn't in the Cabinet meeting that fateful day in May when the Definitive Agreement was tabled, but when he did get around to reading the D-A, he was appalled. And while the government could have saved themselves some of the drama, he says it's good that all is being ventilated now.
Julius Espat, Minister of Infrastructure Dev. & Housing
"I wasn't a part of the cabinet meeting, I was aware of the document. I did not also receive or I did not see any of the legal opinions. When I reviewed the document it's the worst document I have ever seen. It is morally wrong, it is ethically wrong, and from what I am hearing, it can even be legally wrong."
"It's disgusting, I would put it that way. Now what does the government do? That's more the ministry of finance's turf, if you want to call it. I don't know, interfered too much but but we are doing a disservice to Belize I believe that we did not define a cruise ship policy from the day we were elected."
"That has been my stance from day one. If we would have had a cruise ship policy from day one, we would not be in this situation right now and we have to have one. And now it will be scrutinized because you are doing it after the fact. So it becomes more difficult to do. I just hope for the benefit of Belize that we do a proper one and not define for a specific project, but it has to be defined in such a way that it is fair and fair to investors."
"If you don't define what you want, then a million people will come to tell you what they want. So what do we want? I've heard that we want 80% overnight tourism, 20% tourism, then define it. If what is 20%? Does 20% tell you that you have maybe a million passengers in the central zone, then fine. Then you analyze your economical way of looking at it."
"Can two cruise ship terminals function with a million passengers economically. Will it be feasible? If it's not, then why are we fooling ourself? Those are the hard decisions that we should have made from day one and we didn't. And I blame myself as part of Cabinet for not lobbying enough for that to happen but we are here now and it's a good thing though. It's been ventilated... some people beefed it up a little more than others. But but it's been ventilated and I think that's healthy for democracy."
