Business Owners Frustrated Over Port of Belize Delays

Business owners were up in arms today over what they say is the sluggish pace of operations at the Port of Belize Limited (PBL). Since last week, cargo containers have apparently begun to back up at the facility as people face issues with exporting and clearing goods at the port. Several brokers claim they are faced with waiting for long hours due to the port’s limited access to heavy machinery and changes in working hours. Vice president of the Customs Brokers Association of Belize Delroy Fairweather spoke to us about the situation.

Delroy Fairweather: “What had happened before COVID, we used to have the ability to get containers out of the port up until six in the evening, which was very excellent because what that does, the normal, of course, you know working hours, 8 to 12, 1 to 5,  you know having that extra hour you could get a lot of stuff done because importation, again, that’s something that happens, occurs daily. And by that when I say occurring daily meaning that ships are not waiting for you to come in to work to come and bring in cargo. I’m saying that the ships are always coming into this country bringing cargo into this country we have to clear the cargo, we have to get it to the client. So now for the last couple weeks now I’ve been hearing, and I’ve been hearing it and I was just studying it. And now it got to the point now this week I said you know what we need to try to tackle this because we can’t continue a next three like this. Having truck drivers sitting, coming to the port from 2 or 3 in the morning just to try to get in here for when the port opens at eight in the morning to do business that’s ridiculous. There’s no way anyone could operate a business like that. Prior to this you would have been able to get into the port let’s say maybe a turn around time of an hour or hour and a half which is good. Because let’s say for example a trucking company that has multiple trucks you know so let’s say you have five or ten trucks you are looking at within that hour and a half you could have at least get five plus containers loaded and then you can continue on. Now the problem is when you have to spend that amount of time to get a container loaded by the time you get back out to try and get back into the port there’s no way you can get on another container load because remember now you have other trucks that are in queue waiting to get into the port.” 

Our newsroom reached out to the port’s CEO, Arturo Vasquez for an interview, but he declined. Vasquez only stated that since his return, working hours have been extended and certain issues are beyond the port’s control.