Project developer Luke Espat, 50, says he is taking the Government of Belize to court over a stop order issued to the Port of Belize which brought his Carnival Cruise Terminal Tourism Project in the Port Loyola area to a screeching halt.
Espat ceased work on the project, initiated in 2005, after Acting Commissioner of Lands and Surveys, Manuel Rodriguez, issued a stop order on Tuesday, December 16, 2008.
A press release on the letterhead of the Port of Belize sent late this evening quotes Rodriguez as ordering Espat to: “immediately cease all activities on the parcels of lands described herein in relation to land reclamation or land filling.”
“As leaseholder,” Rodriguez is quoted as saying in the order, “you cannot conduct landfill or land reclamation of Belize’s sea bed without proper authority, of which none has been given.” (Emphasis ours.)
Yesterday, Wednesday, about 60 truck drivers operating at the quarry that provides landfill for the project arrived at 7:30 a.m. to find out that there would be no work for them that day.
According to Espat, the drivers symbolically filled their trucks one last time and proceeded to Belize City, where they met with him around 8:00 a.m.
Espat says he then explained the situation to them and emphasized that though he knew it would lead to loss of valuable time and money, he would obey the Government’s order to stop work.
After some exchanges (Espat told us today several of the truckers “cussed” him out personally), one or two of them decided then and there to launch a protest and take the problem to the capital of publicity in Belize City – Albert Street.
At around 10:00 a.m. yesterday, witnesses reported seeing 12 trucks proceeding up Albert Street, which was still being prepared for its long-awaited paving.
The truckers were attempting to get to Prime Minister Hon. Dean Barrow’s law office at #99 Albert Street at the corner with Albert Street West, but were forced to park the trucks on Yarborough Road and walk back to the office on foot.
Once there, the men demanded to see Hon. Barrow; however, he was at that time in Ladyville preparing to serve the annual Christmas banquet to soldiers of the Belize Defence Force. In any event, the P.M. had already vacated his law office before the general elections in February.
According to the truckers, their main concern is the timing of the stop order – 9 days before Christmas.
Santiago Baeza spoke for his fellows when he told Channel 5 reporter Kendra Griffith: “For the government to stop this project one week before Christmas… that is what is hurting us. I think it is very unfair for the UDP government to tell us Merry Christmas this way.”
And the Prime Minister agrees, to an extent. Speaking to the major media houses on Wednesday evening, he said he “sympathized” with the truckers’ position.
Hon. Barrow made it clear, however, that the problem lies not with the Government, but with Espat, who, he says, has not sealed the deal on the property he is working on, and is therefore operating illegally in the eyes of the Government.
According to the Prime Minister, Espat was told before Tuesday to halt the project. Espat told us today he was “advised” to defy the order, leading to Tuesday’s stop order.
The Prime Minister summarized the situation to Channel 7’s Jacqueline Godwin on Wednesday thus: “Luke Espat is not above the law. Luke Espat is not bigger than the government. Luke Espat needs to understand that the administration has changed and things are going to be done differently and properly. He will not hold us to ransom…Unless and until Luke Espat regularizes the position, obtains legal title to that property, he and whoever is in his employ will always be stopped from trespassing on the land and acting as though he is above the law.” (Emphasis ours.)
Espat told us today at his Calle al Mar office in Belize City that the project covers a total area of 110 acres divided into 4 parcels of unequal size, three of which are affected by the stop order. He says he paid for, and has receipts for title to, the land for two of the three properties and filed papers for the third, but surprisingly, he had no title papers he could show to us.
Those parcels are described in the release as being: 1) 45.031 acres along the sea coast and sea bed in Port Loyola (the parcel Espat says he has filed for); 2) Block No. 1, consisting of 27.008 acres along Mile 3 on the Western Highway; and 3) Block No. 2, consisting of 28.588 acres in the same area.
Espat showed Amandala the receipts he kept as proof he paid for Blocks 1 and 2, but said that because he has already filed an application with the Supreme Court against the Government stop order, he was barred from telling us the exact amounts he paid for each parcel under question, because “it will prejudice my case before the Court.” However, he was willing to provide, in the official press release, the reference numbers for each parcel so that we could check with the Ministry of National Resources as to the purchase prices, stamp duties, etc. he paid.
According to the release, Block No. 1 was purchased under contract with the Government on January 14 of this year and the duty and purchase price paid on January 15. Block No. 2 was handled the same way. Espat’s receipts are numbered, in order of purchase, Receipt No. LSD-BMP00147537 and –538 (Block 2) and –539 and –540 (Block 1). The receipts, the release says, prove that the lands belong to the Port.
Attorneys Eamon Courtenay of Courtenay, Coye and Company and Eamon’s uncle, Derek Courtenay of the venerable firm W.H. Courtenay and Company, have been retained for the case by Luke Espat and Port of Belize.
According to Espat, he did not instigate Wednesday’s protest by the truck drivers; they are not employed directly by him, and he says that because he is “a law-abiding citizen,” he had no choice but to comply with Government’s order and halt the activity, to the dismay of the drivers.
For this reason, Espat vehemently denied the Prime Minister’s accusation that he feels he is “above the law,” especially since he voluntarily quit work at great cost to himself rather than face Governmental wrath.
“Belize’s economy loses money from this project every day that we waste,” Espat argued, “and for a Government trying to create investment, create jobs, expand the economy and increase consumer spending, this Government has not eliminated the bureaucratic snags this project has had to hurdle.”
“All we want,” he added, “is for the Prime Minister to be honest. He gave me his personal assurance that he had no problem with the project. The Minister of Tourism (Hon. Manuel Heredia) is on board. Even “Boots” Martinez (Hon. Anthony Martinez, Minister of Works) supported it. Why is the current administration not putting finality to the project?”
Espat says examples of Government’s alleged “dilly-dallying” include failing to appoint a single contact person in charge of overseeing the project, as Espat has requested; spreading untruths about the project like the “lie” that he is filling in the sea; and other things he said would require separate stories in themselves.
When finished, Espat told us, the terminal would allow cruise ships to dock directly instead of ferrying or “tendering” passengers from the ship to the port, eliminating the risk of boat accidents. The surrounding Free Zone would provide jobs, he claimed, for as many as 5,000 Belizeans and show that the country has confidence in itself and in the “permanency” of tourism.
A passionate Espat shrugged off Amandala’s comment that tourism is currently in a decline. He said that “the project can’t stop this far in because we risk forgoing needed national development helped by the influx of foreign exchange the tourists bring. Before this project, Belize could comfortably host 500,000 cruise ship visitors per year, and was hosting almost twice that. Now, we can go higher than a million.”
In touring the mostly barren, earthen site located behind the Port of Belize and extending up the coastline toward the garbage dump at Mile 3 ½ on the Western Highway, also being disputed by the Government, today, Espat compared his project to the ambitious island project in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in which several islands were created directly from the sea.
Espat estimates he has already sunk BZ$40 million (US$20 million) into the project and estimates he will spend another $60 million before all is said and done. Belize needs this to compete in tourism with the likes of Honduras (where the island of Roatan is a Free Zone), Costa Rica and Panama in this region, he says, and he wants Government to “stop playing politics” with the project.
Today’s edition of the UDP/ruling party newspaper, The Guardian, describes Espat in the headline of its front page story as “stubborn” and in an editorial from editor Alfonso Noble, attempts to establish similarities between Espat’s situation and that of BTL in its fight over taxes and the Novelo brothers’ struggle with the Transport Department (both stories are covered elsewhere in this issue).
Espat today said his situation is wholly different: it was the Government that moved on him, not he on the Government, and that he never broke the law. (Both BTL and David and Antonio Novelo say the same thing, readers should note.)
Attempts to reach the Ministry of National Resources today were unsuccessful, as Minister Hon. Gaspar Vega was out of the office and Commissioner Rodriguez and CEO Beverly Castillo were in a meeting. Near the end of the release, it was announced that the management of the Port (namely, Luke Espat) had written to Hon. Barrow requesting an audience to “rectify this misunderstanding” and expressed hope that the Government would cooperate in getting the project restarted.