…but many unsolved problems remain

When the speech was over the Prime Minister mingled with well-wishers before giving some quality time to the press. He responded to questions ranging from his plan for an elected senate to the controversy over a twice promised cruise port.

Prime Minister Said Musa
“We do intend to take a bill to the parliament to propose an elected Senate, we believe the Senate should be elected by the people, as opposed to by interest groups, or selected by interest groups. We feel that’s an advance of what we have at this time. As to when it will kick in, that is matter yet for discussion and debate by the Cabinet, as well by the— we need to discuss it with the Opposition as well. We are hoping to get some consensus about this, but if not, we do intend to propose an elected Senate possibly, say to take effect by 2010, or something like this, in between the normal cycle of the general Elections; so if you have an election like every two-three years, taking place in our country at a national level.”

Jules Vasquez, Channel Seven
“Sir, in a weeks’ time the universal principal payment is due, September 23rd, what will happen on that day?”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“We are convinced that the private sector will take up the matter.”

Jules Vasquez
“Is there a plan afoot— something that is taking place?”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“There is. Yes, yes sir.”

Jules Vasquez
“Sir, while speaking about the elected Senate, one of your Senators resigned last week because of the Electricity Amendment Bill and what he felt were the odious terms of that overtaking the P.U.C. Is that an indictment of this Electricity Amendment Bill.”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“Not at all, I believe Senator Chanona was unduly concerned about the effects of what the bill was doing. In fact, all the bill is doing is asserting the right of Parliament to pass laws. And sometimes it’s done through ministers by statutory instruments and sometimes through the National Assembly. That is all that the bill really is doing; it is saying that the laws should be made by—in the case of a statutory instrument—by a minister of government who is responsible to parliament, or indeed by an act of parliament, as opposed to different agencies passing rules and regulations, which have given rise to problems in the past.”

Stewart Krohn
“Prime Minister, cruise terminals, you said either one or the other is going to be built by 2009. Does government have a plan as to what it actually wants to see happen?”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“Yes, our plan is to level the playing field and to ensure that both projects have an equal stake in building their cruise terminals, and we are convinced that at least one of them will do it, possibly both of them.”

Stewart Krohn
“Prime Minister, you’ve made commitments, you have promised exclusivity to different people. Isn’t this a problem of government’s own making?”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“Well, it’s a problem of development really. Oftentimes the investor, the business people insist or want exclusivity because of the major investment they are making and as a government of a developing country, we have to work our way through these things. It does give rise to problems at times.”

Jules Vasquez
“But Sir, you all reneged on your commitment”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“No we have not reneged on our commitment. The port of Belize Limited does have exclusivity in terms of a commercial port in the Belize district, no other port will be allowed to be built—commercial port—in the Belize district.”

Stewart Krohn
“Well if that’s the case then why would the other crowd even attempt to build a port if he has that exclusivity of a commercial port?”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“Because my understanding is they don’t intend to build a commercial port. All they’re building is a cruise ship docking facility.”

Jules Vasquez
“For free? It’s a commercial transaction.”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“No, no, commercial I mean with the trading of goods and so forth. The normal…”

Stewart Krohn
“But the wording of the contract certainly does not define that?”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“It says port. It says port, yes.”

Jules Vasquez
“Sir, do you accept that you are exposing tax payers to liability because Mr. Luke Espat has already had one law suit and says that he will do another for breach of exclusivity?”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“Now I am convinced that cooler heads will prevail and I believe that this matter will be settled.”

Stewart Krohn
“Prime Minister you spoke in your speech about housing. This time you want to talk about housing for what I would term the indigent or the desperately poor, you’re talking about people…”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“Low income people.”

Stewart Krohn
“No income or low income. But Prime Minister, over the last ten years, the housing programme has resulted in hundreds of empty houses, repossessions of people who have more income than that, it’s been a failure. So how now do you propose to spend scarce resources on housing for people who are even less able to pay.”

Prime Minister Said Musa
“Well you are looking at the glass that is ¾ full and looking at the part that is only ¼ empty. Yes, there are a few houses still unoccupied but the fact is the vast majority of the homes that were built during our period have been occupied and people are paying, majority of them are paying. So I would say that the housing programme has been a great success. We did recognize along the way that we do need to build more low cost housing, low income housing for our people that they can afford, and that is what we’re doing now.”