Earlier we told you about the multi-million-dollar investment that Norwegian Cruise Line is injecting into southern Belize. It has been one that some in the overnight tourism sector have harshly criticized. But the signatories to the MOU say that while there is a general sentiment that cruise tourism will outshine overnight tourism, there is no proof that it has done so. They also assure that calls to the Belize City Tourism Village will not be diverted to Harvest Caye. Instead, they assure that after the Environmental Impact Assessment is complete, the consultations and the initial works begin, up to a thousand jobs will be created in a couple years’ time as a result of the project. And in case you were wondering what will happen to all the garbage derived from cruise tourism in the south, Hugh Darley, the Belize Project Director, says Belizeans need not worry.
HUGH DARLEY
“We’re going to generate our own power; we’re also going to have our own well. We’re going to develop our own water system and we’re going to trade our own sanitary sewer on the island; all of the trash goes back, as Collin said, it’s all recycled, all of our cans go back on the ship. We’re working with the glass company; we’re probably going to chip and use our own glass and do a glass art as a demonstration on the island. Any of the wet garbage is the only thing that goes off the island and that’s anywhere between 50 and 150 gallons of what we call wet garbage; that’s things like banana peels, orange peels and things that you don’t insinuate and then all of that goes back on the ship. So, no hard garbage or no grey garbage will be left on the island at all. It all gets back on the ship and recycles back through the ship’s system. We have adhered to all the EIA approval process; we’ll go by all the science; we already have engineers working on the island; we’ve already conducted a lot of science. The idea is little impact as possible, preserve the environment and allow us to come a build as little as possible on the island to generate enough for what we call our instantaneous population of islands of about twenty eight hundred people.”
Mr. Hulse added that the Government developed a five-point cost benefit analysis that will seek to keep in place those livelihoods that Belizeans already enjoy.
HON. GODWIN HULSE
“And this document was what guided the cabinet to see that these points were met. The first was that we would look at what is socially acceptable and the team came up with Norwegian or the investors should be a good corporate citizen and impose no restrictions on Belizean fishing and other traditional and economic marine practices in surrounding areas; that’s important because we heard people saying, ‘nobody will be able to pass around there; boats will have to pass 5 miles away’ and all kinds of thing I’m hearing; I said that is interesting, I mean, really. We should employ and train Belizeans at all jobs, pay fair wages and abide by Belize labor laws; I’m the Minister of Labor and I’m here to tell you that everybody who comes to this country will abide by the labor laws; promote entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprise investment, as Mr. Singh walks you through the MOU, you will see that there is a clause that requires opportunities for Belizean businesses to go on the island and participate across the board; contribute an environmental monitoring fee to responsibly maintain and control the environment and manage national heritage of the country, that is also built into the MOU; no diversions from existing marketing in Belize City, the project expands the industry for Belize, simultaneously, alleviating the congestion in the city; what we’re saying is we’re not going to transfer people from the north to the south as was rumored; that’s not going to happen.”
And while skeptics have debunked the project, saying that it will destroy the pristineness of the south, Mr. Hulse said that the project was drafted based on submissions made by relevant organizations in southern Belize.
HON. GODWIN HULSE
“Recently in the news you heard a lot about my colleague, Minister Alamilla and the struggles she’s having with the NGO’s who are park and so managers; well the bottom line is they continue to manage the sites and we build in the MOU – first of all there was a quarrel that nobody should come in the south; so, we said ok well they’ll all stay on the island then there was a quarrel about they can’t stay on the island so, they must come to the south; so, we said ok a minimum of 25% and Mr. Murphy had a little problem there with that; then they said, ‘too much will come and they will mash up’ so, we said, well then we will limit it to what the site managers say; so, just explain this to me – 25% we are saying to bring ashore and he gave us some numbers but limit it to what the site managers say; it’s not government managing the site, its NGO’s and you hear them all, SATIIM and the rest managing and so, if the site mashes up, blame them.”
As for the head tax, this is how that will be shared.
HON. GODWIN HULSE
“In the initial first year of all investments, there’s going to be various taxes, expenditure from the crew, 3.8 million annually is projected; expenditure by the cruise lines payment to the port for passenger taxes and port services; break down of the head tax, 1.37 million dollar annually; social security approximately 1200 jobs is being projected generating another 1.25 million; inflow of revenues from tours and they looked at that and we’re looking about 4 million dollars; GST fiscal incentives GST and environmental tax on the investment and of materials and so and they’re looking at approx 6.1 million; supplies of consumables and fuel revenue for an overall total of about 43-45 million dollars in foreign exchange in the first year; I don’t think it’s anything to scoff at.”
MICHAEL SINGH
“The MOU developer undertakes to contribute 17 cents per
manifested passengers towards the tourism development fund whereby a partition of the proceeds of the TDF and any other available resources will be use to promote sustainable management of tour sites and other attractions as well as the development of new tour sites and attractions to accommodate both overnight and cruise tourism in southern Belize. Now I’m not going to get into a lot of detail about tourism development fund because that’s something that the BTB and the Ministry of Tourism along with the Ministry of Local Government administer currently and you all might recall the move several years ago to implement a fee that is now collected by the City of Belize, this falls in line within that same fund and now that fund currently is shared among all the agencies that are involved in cruise tourism and including the current port operator in Belize, the Fort Street Tourism Village. The idea of the contribution here would be equivalent to what the Fort Street Tourism Village puts towards that fund for the Belize City area. So, that’s included for the south whereby we won’t need the Mayor to go on a strike like what happened in Belize City to compel that happen.”
With a Fiscal Incentives Package in place Singh says that the new project will also seek to create equal opportunity for people who operate duty-free shops within the port area.