P.B.L. Says It Hopes G.O.B. Honors M.O.U.

Andrew Lane

C.E.O. Lane is now hoping that G.O.B. will honor that M.O.U. and keep the sugar shipments in Belize. And he says if that happens, they want to transition into moving the Collective Bargaining Agreement forward with the C.W.U. as soon as possible.  But we’ll only know what happens  next week and although Lane has appealed to the stevedores to end the go slow, he says they are really in the hands of the workers – and hopes that G.O.B. will decide in their favour or else that will send them scrambling to make contingencies.

Andrew Lane, C.E.O., Port of Belize Limited

“We are really in the hands of the C.W.U. here and we have agreed to have discussions. The funny thing here is that the Government on Tuesday may very well rule that the sugar remains in Belize City and then won’t have anything to discuss on sugar and that is why I say that it is a little bit premature and inappropriate to be having a go slow now because we don’t know if the sugar is definitely going to be leaving. We know that B.S.I. would like to move down to Big Creek because they believe that their future is best served down there. But that is not the only consideration that needs to be made. I hear what the C.W.U. has to say about the sympathy for the farmers but this is their voluntary action.”

Andrea Polanco

“Should the government decide that they are not going to stick with the Port of Belize, is there a contingency in place, in the interim, to address the sugar barge issue; because I imagine if the Government makes such a decision the C.W.U. members are not going to be happy about that?”

Andrew Lane

“I am not going to be happy about that either because this is also less business for me and I don’t want to lose business from this port. I think it would be very unfortunate if the government doesn’t enforce an agreement that they signed and I don’t know what that means in terms of Belize being able to attract foreign investment when you can’t trust the government on agreements that they have made. I think that would be a very unfortunate but we have to prepare for that outcome but we have to prepare for that outcome. We don’t have to prepare for that outcome about having hypothetical discussions or having go slows in case that is the outcome but once that is a the outcome,  you are quite right we have to engage in very quick and serious discussions with the C.W.U. to understand about how this leaves us and how this leaves our stevedore employees.”