by Colin Hyde
The government needs to be very sincere about cruise tourism, and if they are, they might serve Belize best by following the blueprint that got the people in the sugarcane industry to sit down in a commission of inquiry for the purpose of bettering that business for all. Government doesn’t have much of a say in that inquiry because they are all private parties around the table. In the cruise tourism matter, government is potentially a big player, because it owns Port of Belize Ltd. (PBL). Government can threaten to enter the industry, and its hand is strengthened by the impasse at Stake Bank.
Cruise tourism is foreign-owned, but we have an asset that they want to visit. Our government’s business must be to get a fair share for Belizeans directly involved in the industry, and to extract as much taxes as they can for the national coffers. Government should get all the investors and potential investors into a room – Feinstein, Atlantic Bank/slash Honduran interest, Gegg, Ashcroft, Boskalis, FECTAB, Jamaican interests, everybody – and don’t let them out until we make sense of this thing.
Government has floated the idea of including cruise tourism in the game plan for PBL. Of course, any cruise port plan at PBL couldn’t be at the scale Waterloo batted for. PBL as a cruise player should be just for its value in bringing sense to the industry. Government can play, and Stake Bank and Port Magical don’t want, maybe can’t afford, that.
Looking at Stake Bank, it’s hard to turn your eye away from this land ownership impasse, its relationship with Drowned Cay, and the far-from-finished pier. While we wait for explanations on those matters, I will focus on the fact that Stake Bank with all its components would have a far greater negative impact on the environment than Port Magical. The first conception of Waterloo was the worst, and the second Waterloo conception and Stake Bank are about par. I don’t think any lettered environmentalist would challenge that observation.
Stake Bank proposed a channel, complete with EIA, to connect the island directly to Grennel’s Channel. The proposed channel, 8.6 km long with 6.48 km needing to be dredged, would be 150 meters wide and 12 meters below mean sea level (from surface to bottom). This channel would save an hour and a half, a tremendous amount of time for people stopping in Belize only for a day. Stake Bank might have as much interest in this channel as it has in its proposed causeways.
If the Port Magical project goes through, the time savings would be about 45 minutes. There would be considerable dredging to complete Port Magical as presently envisaged, but the area where the dredging would be done is far less sensitive than the proposed channel for Stake Bank.
Port Magical proposes to create a peninsula that is 0.4 miles wide and 0.9 miles long. The pier and landing area for the cruise ships would extend out from this peninsula. I suppose primarily the purpose of the created land is to provide a space for them to set up structures, businesses so they can catch and bite tourists before they move off to inland and sea tours.
My take is that this Port Magical project can be improved. I would suggest to government that Port Magical’s peninsula not extend out more than 0.3 miles, and it be as wide as they want it. Port Magical says the buses exiting the peninsula will access the George Price Highway via a 10.2-meter-wide, two-lane road and a bridge over the Sibun. What’s the purpose of spending all this money when the more you spend, the more damage you do to the environment? That road should be single-lane, with passing bays.
Stake Bank should give up on that channel and those causeways. As a prize for that, Port Magical should allow Stake Bank to buy shares in their project. Yes, get all the bankers and cruise operators in, give everyone a chance to protect their interests.
My gudnis, they want the girls to look sex-ier
They passed a law which they back up with a big stick, that up to the age of 16 she is a child, a pikni, a lee gyal. It follows that they wouldn’t encourage “gilding” the lily, definitely not while they’re in their charge. If parents want their girl children to express themselves, they have home time, and weekends when they can go out and turn heads.
Benksaid Bembe
Big congratulations to the most important contributor to Kriol writing, Silvaana Udz, PhD., on the publishing of her new book, Benksaid Bembe. Aha, you might have noticed that on the back of the book I get the honor of commenting on the story alongside UB professor Ivory Kelly, the author of Pengereng, which might be our first “bi-lingual” book.
The famous Colville Young, PhD. had done some work to preserve Kriol in literature, but it wasn’t until Silvaana came along and applied her considerable talent that we reached the stage where we could write a book in Kriol. It’s a labor of love. Hey, I admit that it took me all of two months to recognize the value of a Kriol writing system for those of us who want to express our thoughts in the mother language.
Kriol pronunciation, unlike that crazy English, follows true phonetics. The most difficult words to handle in Kriol have the ai sound. If you’re not fameelya, when you look at the title of the story your mind will say, Benksed Bembe. It would have been easier for Silvaana to write, Benkside Bembe. But, Silvaana is a teacher, she has devoted much of her life to educating us so we can read and write Kriol, now all we haffu du da get on board. There are some purists out there who will still resist, but time will fix anyone who doesn’t yield to an idea whose time has come. Yes.
Benksaid Bembe, Pengereng too, will give you some trouble if you haven’t yet immersed yourself in learning fu read wi langwij. Tros mi, it is worth the effort if yu waahn di full joos.
By the way, dehn gat sohn Bembe weh really bad, ahn sohn praminent naym kohn tu main. Yu noa di kain weh a di taak bowt, dehn wan weh waahn fum fum ahn bullireg man. Noh dis ya Benksaid Bembe. She da di gud kain, di kain weh my ma seh stay by the public faucet fu protect the children soh chaansi peepl noh push dehn owt a lain wail dehn di wayt fu full dehn bokit.
Feel the glory
May the glory of the Baymen never fade, as we march and wave our flags today; hurra, hurra, hip, hip hurra! Don Hector Silva reminded us the other day that those daam PUP yooz to sing, with all their gusto, “God Bless America”. Can anyone blame the British for wanting to jail George Price blank? In his days when he had a short fuse, Hector was in favor of lashing bad boys at bridge foot. Well, the British loved the sash kaad an tambran whip tu. George Price is a very lucky man. I think it was Sandy Hunter that saved his hash.
Price was a Bob Turton man. According to Turton’s biographer, Leroy A. Grant, Turton didn’t think the socialist Price knew a whit about business. But he kept Price on because he was good at the secretarial/bookeeping work. The one who pays the piper calls the tune, and Turton’s song definitely wasn’t “God Save the King”. It’s really a period of shame in the country. I think lock, stock, and barrel the original PUPeez were against the king, and a favor the king’s former colony, the little upstart America. You know the British are still better than them. But let me not be offensive to anyone today.
Whoa, there’s a lot of things we have to fix in our country. I hear there’ll be a big carnival parade, a lot of pageantry. But don’t look for Duhende, Xtabai, Jakilantan, and Anaasi; no, the show will be all about some Disney Mermaid and other characters from foreign television. Daam, I slipped into the gutter again. And it’s a time for celebration. This noble spot, this blessed choice, our homeland by the sea. Hip hip! Hurray! May the glory of the Baymen never fade!