Yesterday we spoke to CEO in the Ministry of Trade and Investment Mike Singh about the major new development planned for Caye Chapel. And while that seems to have gotten an executive green light - even before any environmental assessment is made - another island project of far greater scale is still holding at a yellow light. That, of course, is the much discussed Stake Bank project. It's tied up in threats of lawsuits - and Singh told us government can't just clear the way for this local investment - he said it's up to the vested interest to hammer out a solution:..
Mike Singh, CEO- Ministry of Trade
"My take on it is that unless the parties agree to sit down together and work towards what is best for Belize, I don't know what much government can do. Because the minute government sticks its hand in there, there is a lawsuit that is going to fly and we have to decide what we are going to do with that. And then would government really want to do something that bold and that's going to end up saddling the Belizean people with yet another settlement? I think that's a difficult decision. I think government has shown that it's not afraid of taking these risks with the two acquisitions that are still now in court, how many years later? Five years later. I am not so sure that we want to go down that road again. In my take on it, and I am hoping that perhaps we can become a facilitator to bring the parties together. You can't legislate a solution to this problem. It's too late for that, which means that we have to bring the parties together and have them dialogue. Everybody is losing money. It's not just the hair braiders and people on the street. Whenever Carnival has to reroute the ship they lose money. The tender operators lose money, the FSTV loses money. So, there should be some sensible approach at some point in time, but how do you force somebody to be sensible? I haven't learnt how to do that yet."
Jules Vasquez
"Are they holding hostage the future of cruise tourism?"
Mike Singh, CEO- Ministry of Trade
"Well clearly not. It's growing. We are up to one million tourists. So it doesn't seem to be slowing down our growth at all."
And for more numbers government is looking to the South, specifically the Norwegian Cruise Lines project on Harvest Caye. Singh told us what is the state of readiness there, south of Placencia:..
Mike Singh, CEO- Ministry of Trade
"On the NCL project, the last update I got from the developers have been that they're almost complete with land works; part of their development which is the land reclamation, the creation of the landing dock and the dock itself where they are doing some dredging. They have gone through a lot of the permitting with respect to the construction, but they haven't actually started any significant construction. I think they have worker's housing and some of the operational buildings up with the actual amenities. But they are still saying that they are going to be ready to be opened for October."
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