The Government of Belize this morning issued a press release to inform that the lease granted to Port of Belize Limited, PBL, to operate and manage the Commerce Bight Port has been revoked and the Minister, Rene Montero, has arranged for possession and control of the Port by the Belize Port Authority with immediate effect. Love News called the Chief Executive officer in the Ministry of Works and Transport, Errol Gentle who explained the particulars of the lease and under what grounds it was revoked.
ERROL GENTLE
“The minister responsible for ports, in this case, the Honorable Rene Montero, who is the Minister of Works and Transport, the ports fall under his jurisdiction or is part of his portfolio, got approval from Cabinet and in accordance with Clause 16 of the lease; in the clause 16, it says, the Minister may, if satisfied there has been a breach of the terms and conditions of this lease or any contraventions of any other provision of the laws of Belize or any regulations made there under or bylaws or there has been a failure by the leasee to implement to the satisfaction of the Minister, a development plan submitted under clause 14 hereof revoke or suspend such lease after given to the leasee at least one month’s notice of intention to do so. I know you will recall that in 2008 this was done, however PBL had applied to the Supreme Court for an injunction, restraining the Minister from taking possession of the port; that was granted, however on the 20th July of 2012, the Supreme Court discharged that injunction; so, the Minister was then able to, after having served notice to revoke the lease and that is exactly what’d happened. There were three areas in clause 14, the three areas of the lease that caused the revocation; the first one: PBL had failed to submit a development plan or to carry out any development work at the port as required by this clause; the second was: PBL failed to operate and manage the port to carry out the necessary dredging of the approach channel and the dock basin as required under this clause, it is 4.1 and under clause 10, PBL had failed to pay the lease rental to the Government of Belize in accordance with this clause. I’m not certain if you know but the Commerce Beight Port was actually closed; there was no activity going on there and there is a need for this port to be in operation in order to meet the commercial needs of the country; so, with this in mind it was agreed that the government should revoke the lease and take immediate posession of the Commerce Beight Port and that is exactly what we did with it.”
NATALIE NOVELO
“You just mentioned commercial needs for the country; tell us how important is the development of this port and what it can bring to the country?”
ERROL GENTLE
“As you know, in the south we have bananas, we have the citrus, we have petroleum and we have the oil going out; SO, Commerce Bight Port would be able to serve all these needs but the port needs to be operational.”
NATALIE NOVELO
“By revoking this lease, the port has been repossessed by the Government; do you have any other lease holders in mind for now?”
ERROL GENTLE
No, the port is now back under the control of the Belize Port Authority; so, what the Government will be doing now is to try and obtain funding and try to upgrade the port and we’re talking about upgrading to international standards.”
The release states that the government will aggressively seek international funding for the upgrade of Commerce Bight.
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