In the middle of yesterday's Sitting of the Senate, a press release was issued in which the names of the interim board members for the newly government managed Port of Belize were announced. The senator for labor, Luke Martinez, expressed his shock and concern since the social partners were not consulted. The Foreign Minister emphasized that it was just an interim board, needed to make the acquisition smoother.
Today the Leader of the Opposition said that they had more than enough time to make their intentions known before naming a board. He also raised his concern about the Essential Services Arbitration Tribunal ruling and the money still owed to the stevedores.
Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
"We understand it is an interim board but how difficult, they have been negotiating this purchase, this acquisition of the port, the re-nationalization of the port, for months, how difficult is it to, while having these negotiations, say, let us constitute an interim board, reach out to the union, reach out to the trade and commerce, reach out to whatever other stakeholders you think should be on this board so that once the acquisition is approved by the National Assembly, we can move post haste."
"However what is outstanding is the ESAT, the Essential Services Arbitration Tribunal, and I have been speaking about this since April of this year, when the stevedores, the Christian Workers Union were faces their difficulties, their challenges, with their ex-gratia payment frozen and a government, a Briceno government that refused to enforce the Tribunal's decision, that the CWU, the stevedores were in fact redundant and there should be some type of settlement made with them. That needed to be worked out, that was the decision of the Tribunal, which was final, it was not the CWU's responsibility to go to the high court and litigate the matter, that's why you have a Tribunal and both parties submit to the Tribunal, what the Tribunal says is final and the government refused to intervene and enforce the decision of the Tribunal. Now that the government owns the port and they have appointed their board, I pray that this is $1 on the priority list to ensure that the ESAT decision is enforced and the stevedores who the prime minister claimed this is the reason why we are acquiring the port, we are purchasing the port with the taxpayers' dollars was because he loved the stevedores so much, the stevedores need their settlement for redundancy for the sugar going to Big Creek according to the Essential Services Arbitration Tribunal."
