7 News Belize

Hulse Says GOB Did Have Issues To Clarify With NCL
posted (December 15, 2016)
And it seems we weren't the only ones meeting the top brass from Norwegian. Chairman of Cabinet's Investment Committee Godwin Hulse says he did the same yesterday. He says they discussed the required ratios of local involvement and employment:..

Hon. Godwin Hulse, Chmn., Cabinet Investment Committee
"When we started the negotiations with NCL both in the MOU, it was clear that initially they will be able to bring up to 25% of foreign personnel which they will phase out over a period of 5 years, but it was also crustal clear that when it came to tour guides, boat captains and those that has to be Belizean unconditionally. I met with them just to review that together with Minister Heredia and Minister Panton as well as the senior staff of the BTB and the BELTRAIDE to reiterate that. As I understand it, the minister is down there today, NCL has assured us that they are complying to the letter with the agreement both in terms of hiring only local tour guides and people associated with that element and also on the island as best as possible hiring as many locals. As you know, the catering has gone to Dustin Bowen's company and they told us that they've put up 8 kiosks in which the Mayan group of women can display their articles for sale and that sort of thing. So it seems so far that their complying, the taxi service is being done by the Castillo group which is another local group. The one sticking point however was the sale of tours. They are saying that they have always sold toured like other cruise companies and continue to sell those tours. It doesn't stop independents from selling tours but they do not want independents on the island to be selling tours from the island. In other words, they don't want this rush to tourist to say 'come with me' they are suggesting they have no difficulty with that happening in Placencia or at Malacate but not on the islands specifically. So when tourists come to the island they can take a taxi, go to Placencia or go to Malacate and take an independent tour from there. The tourist board had some difficulties with that but I think that's an issue they were trying to sort out last night in the meetings and hopefully today in the tour."

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