Injunction puts a quick stop to vessel unloading at unauthorized port…

Raineldo Guerrero

There is fuss again between the Ministry of Transport and Ports and the Port of Belize but the victim is neither of the two.  In fact, it is the British Forces Belize that has found itself in a situation where imports from its British-based compound need a port to be unloaded.  And today, after the unloading started at the Old Belize dock the court intervened on behalf of one of the parties, who sought an injunction to stop the process.  News Five spoke to Raineldo Guerrero and Luke Espat from the Port of Belize to find out what the stir was about.

Raineldo Guerrero, C.E.O., Port of Belize Limited

“The process is basically where they request an estimate from us, we give them back an estimate. But prior to responding to the request for an estimate, we made it very clear that we would not allow anybody to be loading an unloading because of a previous experience in the past and that we would not be held responsible for any delays caused because of the situation. They responded that they were not happy with the estimate and they want us to charge them the same thing that we would charge for a similar situation about six months ago. We responded that the estimate basically stands because we will not allow anybody but the Port to handle the cargo.  The Port Authority wrote us about it. We wrote back the Port Authority saying that it was premature for them to be intervening in this at this time, that we had not exhausted the negotiation process; basically saying that they had not come back to us. We expected them to come back to us where we’d discuss how it would be loaded and unloaded and that kind of stuff and they did not come back to us. Next thing we knew, Monday night we got a letter saying that they had given permission to CSA for the vessel to be unloaded at Old Belize.”

“Today the court approved an injunction against the Belize Port Authority, Caribbean Shipping Agencies and Old Belize to stop the unloading of the vessel, which came in yesterday. The court made that decision because the Ports Commissioner gave permission to the Caribbean Shipping Agencies to unload at Old Belize, when Old Belize is not a legally authorized port. It stops the unloading at Old Belize but the Port of Belize is open and we welcome them to come to the Port of Belize and it is available to unload the next barge.”

Marion Ali

“Is this the first time that this has occurred?”

Raineldo Guerrero

“Yes, to my knowledge.”

Marion Ali

“If they deicide to not go to the Port to unload, what happens?”

Raineldo Guerrero

“Then they would probably leave the country. We would hope that that would not be the case because we are not saying that we don’t want you to unload; we want you to unload but the legally authorized port if he Port of Belize and that the Ports Commissioner himself erred in giving permission to the agents  unload at Old Belize. so all we wanted to do was to correct an error.”