‘Tux’ Vasquez, the new president of Chamber of Commerce

Arturo ‘Tux’ Vasquez

The Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in an annual general meeting held recently, has appointed a new president.  Businessman Arturo ‘Tux’ Vasquez succeeds immediate past President Kay Menzies, who has served in that capacity for the past four years.  The AGM also saw the election of new councilors to the executive of the BCCI.  They are Daniel Gutierrez, Linda Thornton, Sue Courtenay, Nikita Usher and Karen Lewis.  This is Vasquez’s second alternate term as president of the chamber and, as such, commences his tenure by joining ongoing consultations on the issue of the Occupational Safety and Health Bill.  That piece of legislation was tabled before the House of Representatives and ratified earlier this year; however, kinks regarding certain aspects of the law are still being ironed out.  Vasquez spoke with News Five and he told us that a follow-up meeting is scheduled for this evening.

Arturo ‘Tux’ Vasquez, Incoming President, BCCI

“We had elections a week ago, I think, and the new councilors have joined and some of the new vice presidents for service and our industry is pretty good, from what I can see.”

Isani Cayetano

“One of the issues, if I may, that is carrying over from Kay Menzies’ presidency is that of the Occupational Safety and Health Bill.  You haven’t had much of a chance to delve into the meat of that particular matter but can you touch on that briefly?”

Arturo ‘Tux’ Vasquez

“Well I know that that is one that is definitely on the table right now.  As it is, there is another meeting today with the house committee at the ITVET compound at six o’clock where the private sector is more than willing to join that discussion.  This is the second meeting with the house committee and from what I’ve seen is that members of the private sector have provided their reasons and explanations or, you know, some of the corrections or improvements that need to be made to the bill.  I know one significant one that keeps repeating is that I think that they are looking at two different bills and that’s quite interesting.  There are others where people are concerned that the monitoring and policing of these policies may be something that is limited to, I believe it’s seven people and, you know, they are concerned that seven people could not be experts as to all the different services.  The last house committee meeting they had at the Chateau [Caribbean Hotel] was quite interesting, I think some people made some very good points even though we want to maintain and keep labor going.  Health and Safety, of course, I don’t think anybody, anybody in the private sector is saying that we don’t want health and safety, I mean, with my, putting on my Port [of Belize] hat, I think it is something very important but at the same time I’m not sure that we could achieve, for lack of a better word, absolute safety.  We have to do safety at the best levels that we can, so while we are supportive of the bill I think there are several factors I can recall about forty or fifty points that were brought out and sent to the house committee for them to look at.  So between the last house committee meeting that we were able to attend and today, today we will really see what government’s response is on the comments that they had the last time.”