Belizean tender operators were stunned at a meeting with Carnival representative Captain Domenico Tringali on Tuesday, January 11, 2011, when they were told that the international cruise line would proceed full speed ahead with plans to put into effect an exclusive contract with US businessman, Richard “Rick” O’Shea, to control tendering operations for the major cruise lines in Belize, thereby removing operations from the hands of Belizean businessmen.
This announcement went contrary to what Prime Minister Dean Barrow had announced to the media on Monday, January 10, 2011, just after his return from a two-day meeting with Senior Vice President of Carnival, Ruben Rodriguez, in Miami, Florida, over this past weekend.
Barrow was accompanied by Minister of Tourism, Manuel Heredia, Director of Tourism, Seleni Matus, and Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Tourism, Lindsay Garbutt, when he left Belize on Thursday, January 6, 2011.
The urgent mission, the delegation said, was to negotiate a suspension in a suddenly imposed policy by the cruise lines (that would permit only tenders of a certain size to service their passengers), which was to have been implemented that same Thursday. However, the shift in policy would have mercilessly displaced numerous small local tender owners who had invested millions in the industry, as well as their workers.
Since several Belizean boat owners did not have vessels big enough to meet the requirement for vessels to have a minimum of 150 seats, these operators would have been immediately displaced from the market.
Barrow had announced at the Monday press conference that Carnival and the Government of Belize had reached an agreement which would enable the small local tender operators to remain employed; however, this meant that they [the local tender operators] would have to form a consortium to meet Carnival’s new policy requirements. According to Barrow, this entity is to be headed by Stanley Longsworth, Sr., owner of Caribbean Shipping Services, one of three major port tender operators.
The Prime Minister had also explained that the new tender consortium would get a grace period to organize and to secure vessels to service the cruise lines.
However, on Tuesday, local Belize tenders were told that O’Shea would remain the point-man who would subcontract locals and decide how the business is shared among tender operators.
Amandala’s attempts to speak with Prime Minister Barrow on these subsequent developments were unsuccessful; however he did speak with KREM News on Wednesday, indicating that he had spoken again with Rodriguez, who assured him that O’Shea would not control the tendering operations:
“He [Rodriguez] made it absolutely clear that the agreement that he had reached with me in Miami stood, but he would find out what Captain Tringali really said, but that if it turns out that Tringali had said something different, it didn’t matter because the understanding that we had reached [remains in effect].
“…He [Rodriguez] did call this afternoon and made his position absolutely clear once again; the position is as I stated yesterday: Carnival will [deal] exclusively with the Belizean entity that we found, with the association, with the sort of co-op by the tender owners, headed by Stanley Longsworth.
“…The time period which Carnival has now specified, [by which time] …we would have to acquire the additional big tenders that will be needed, has now been fixed for the first of October of this year, so we are being given all that time to get the big tenders to service Carnival completely at the required level,” explained Barrow.
Barrow also spoke on the meeting he had with Belize tender operators after 6:00 Tuesday evening, which, he said, was “…to tell them [tender operators] that I had spoken with Rodriguez after I got the news that Tringali had said in the morning that O’Shea had to be involved.
“I spoke to Mister Rodriguez late in the afternoon and so actually we had passed through the meeting with the tender operators to determine what we would do if [in fact] Rodriguez sided with Tringali. I went into the meeting just before 6:00 to assure them that Rodriquez is sticking with the agreement he had made with me.”
Additionally, Barrow said that the government is recommending to the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) that it provide a loan to the small tender operators, in order for them to purchase the two catamarans brought in by Norwegian Cruise Lines in December.
“There are two tenders [catamarans] that Norwegian Cruise Lines just brought in that presumably Mister O’Shea was to handle. We will offer to buy those tenders—that is the Belizeans. DFC will be asked to provide financing [in the form of a] loan to the small tender owners so that together, by way of this new venture, they can purchase those 2 tenders from Norwegian Cruise Lines,” Barrow ended.