COLA & FECTAB Push for a Port at Stake Bank

Yhony Rosado

FECTAB’s executive member Yhony Rosado pointed to a new report that suggests Norwegian Cruise Line, who are completing their own facility at Harvest Caye in the Stann Creek District, aim to abandon Belize City as a port of call, a decision that would have fatal consequences for industry providers here.  FECTAB President Tom Greenwood also says that it is up to Belizeans to throw the shackles off their hands and work together. “Sweating fever” is not a bad thing, he says, when worse may follow.

Yhony Rosado, Executive Member, FECTAB)

“I must mention Tom that when they were building Harvest Caye, they were mentioning that only some of the ships or one or two ships will be going there. You got to cruisett.com, they are already canceling all their ports to Belize City…they are going to Harvest Caye. Cruisett.com; it is not FECTAB, it is not nobody, it is an international website that the cruise use to notify the American and Canadian public that they are going to a different port starting November next year. So there will be no more high season. Every industry depends on a high season and there will be no more high season. And like I said if people out there would have known what we know and that’s why the media is very important that the people know that we were never informed of this when they were building Harvest Caye. No, only one or two ships will be going there is a pure lie.”

Tom Greenwood

Tom Greenwood, President, FECTAB

“What is astounding is that we know for instant, one big foreign tour operator here gets paid in St. Lucia. Where are all those taxes? The natives of Belize are hammered into ground by a local authority that can’t touch a foreign tour operator? That is bull…that is complete bull. And I am glad you mentioned the name of Singh. This is the man who has pushed hard with the southern project. Why does that project get in the way of this project? What is special about that that is not special about this? This is a larger community, a more established industry, long established. Why aren’t we pushing both of them? We need to, as a nation, understand that this nonsense that we have been taught—by first the colonial masters and then our political masters—that we must not sweat each other’s fever, is one of the sickest things to ever hit any nation anywhere because boss if you ketch fever, yow ah pass it to someone else. So whenever yo fellow Belizeans catches fever, you need to also recognize that you will catch that fever. It is time that we began sweating fever for each other people; it is time that we got things off the ground; it is time that we stop getting hammered into the ground.”