NCL project on Crawl Caye rejected by Cabinet
It is not officially confirmed, but News Five has learnt that in its meeting today, Cabinet supported the recommendation of the five-member subcommittee on the Norwegian Cruise Line’s one hundred million dollar tourism project. The subcommittee met on Monday at the B.T.B. headquarters in Belize City and rejected the proposal for the project at Crawl Caye. Ministers Godwin Hulse, who leads the subcommittee and Lisel Alamilla as well as Santi Castillo were present. But Minister of Tourism Manuel Heredia and Minister of Economic development, Erwin Contreras did not make it to the meeting. The committee recommended that only the peninsula should only benefit from pocket tourism in accordance with a master plan developed in 2010. So the unofficial report tonight is that Cabinet has rejected the NCL project. But there is also word that NCL will be pursuing a similar project at Harvest Caye.
I wonder what work was more important for Heredia and Contreras, than attending a meeting about a controversial $100-million project?
Moving the project to Harvest Cay won’t solve any of the environmental issues, and will still violate the “master plan,” so why bother with it?
God made Belize for shallow-draft vessels, not deep-water, mega-cruisers.
Leave the natives with their seashells and coconuts husking them and serving the expats owners-go to Costa Rica or Honduras or Guatemala Norweigan.