DIRECTOR OF TOURISM COMMENTS ON ONGOING DISPUTE

January 23, 2007

Yesterday Love News spoke with Belize City Mayor Zenaida Moya who told us why the City Council rejected the latest offer of 100 thousand dollars from the Belize Tourism Board. Today we spoke with Director of Tourism Tracy Panton who gave us the B-T-B’s position.

Tracy Panton: Director of Tourism

“I think it is very important on the on set to clarify that we are really talking about two separate issues. The first issue is not an issue that the BTB can address but I will at least clarify what the issue is. The City Council has made a request to the government of Belize for a portion of the Cruise Ship passenger head tax. It is a Government tax. Seven dollars of that amount the protected areas conservation gets one forty, the Belize Tourism board gets one sixty and four dollars goes to FSTB. So the city council is saying to the Government that we need a portion of the head tax and that needs to be sorted out with Central Government. The second issue is an issue that the Belize tourism board can speak to and that is the issue of an agreement that was signed between the Belize City Council and the Belize Tourism Board in September of last year for specific tourism related projects. We had agreed that there were three projects that would be taken between the period of September through march of 2007 the end of march which is the end of the fiscal period and the Belize tourism board agreed that it would support those projects with funding from its own recurring budget to a sum not to exceed a million dollars with a focus on the craft and vendors market which is a concern that we have had for a long time not just the Belize tourism board but our stake holders that the area outside of the village needs to be organized so that at the end of the day we could be making more money from Cruise Tourism.”

We asked Panton about the Memorandum of Understanding which Mayor Moya said the Council signed under protest.

Tracy Panton:Director of Tourism

“I’m not aware that it was signed under protest. I think that the Belize tourism board continues to operate in good faith. We do recognize that there are specific infrastructural needs as a result of Cruise Tourism in the city and it needs to be addressed that the funding must come from somewhere. Under the present legislated frame work the tourism board can only act on projects that to tourism and I think that that was made very clear to the Belize City Council and they agreed by the signing of an M-O-U that we would proceed along those lines and in partnership for the best interest of cruise tourism and tourism on a whole in Belize City. The Tourism Board today has advanced to the Belize City Council a sum of two hundred and forty thousand dollars to mobilize these projects and in particular the craft and vendors market and to date there has been no action taken by the city council or any plans submitted to the board for the project to be realized.”

On Friday the City Council rejected the 100 thousand dollar cheque; we asked Panton what the cheque was for.

Tracy Panton: Director of Tourism

“It was an additional advance to the city council to mobilize the craft and vendors market. The board met in a special session to discuss the way forward with the break down of discussions between the Belize tourism board and the Belize City council for these projects and agreed that to show yet another act of good faith that we would advance an additional hundred thousand dollars so that the projects could come on stream.” 

We asked Panton what is the next move in this situation.

Tracy Panton: Director of Tourism

“I think that the Belize tourism board position is clear that we have signed an agreement. It was not legally binned it was a good will agreement that we both recognized that there are specific projects and needs of the city as a result of cruise tourism and the tourism board in effect has now advance quarter million dollars to lend support the infrastructure needs of the city and it is now for the city council to act on its commitment that it will work with us in partnership. I understand that there has been some flip flopping between the two issues and an attempt to align the two issues as though they were one and that the present position of the council is that they either get the head tax or they destabilize the industry which I think is in my personal view is a very irresponsible approach to an industry that is the number one foreign exchange earner for Belize. I think that we put at risk certainly the lively hoods of many Belizeans.”

Tracy Panton, Director of Tourism.

|

|