Cordel Hyde Says G.O.B. Should Consider Taking Over P.B.L.

Cordel Hyde

This afternoon, Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde, the sibling of former C.W.U. president ‘Mose’ Hyde, weighed in on the matter.  The Minister of Natural Resources says that it is time for government to seriously think through a nationalization of the Port of Belize. 

Cordel Hyde, Deputy Prime Minister

“We should consider very seriously returning the port to the people of Belize.  I think that’s the only way you’ll get to restore some sort of civility and some sort of decency and some sort of modernity to the port.  The truth of the matter is nothing has been done at that place.  Absolutely nothing has been done to improve that place and every time you hear about the port, all you hear is discord and divisiveness and animosity and at some point in time we’re going to have to figure out what it is that we are doing and what it is that we are about because my sense is that those owners of the port, whether it is a receivership, whether it’s an ownership, those persons consider the stevedores to be mere chattels.  A government, a self-respecting government cannot subscribe to that cause because how we treat the stevedores, how we allow the stevedores to be treated is a reflection of what we think we are and who we are and how we want to be treated in this global age of free trade.  So we have to do more, we have to get it right.  If it has to be that we have to take over the port then we should mein because we’ve been going at it for way too long.”