PM Briceno Responds to Lord Ashcroft’s Criticism of Port of Belize

Prime Minister John Briceno has publicly countered recent statements made by Lord Michael Ashcroft regarding the Port of Belize.  Earlier this week, Ashcroft commented on his media station that the condition of the port was deplorable and in need of urgent attention.  In an interview this morning, PM Briceno noted that a consultant has already been contracted to draft a master plan for the facility.  Among the ideas for the port is the establishment of a cruise and container port.

John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “We have a group out of Miami working on a master plan on how we’re going to progress, how we’re going to move the port forward and the investments necessary. The cabinet has already agreed, I presented a paper to the cabinet several months ago on what are the different options. A is to do a cruise and container port and B to be able to do just the container port. And we saw the options and the cabinet felt that it’s in the best interest to do both. And so we are working on a massive plan to do that. The previous owners were working on a master plan, but of course, they said they now they want to charge us an exorbitant amount of money if we want to take over that plan that they were working on. So it’s best we’re going to do our own. It’s pushing us back a few months. There have been a number of- of companies that have expressed interest, MSC has expressed interest, Carnival has expressed interest and other investment has expressed interest, but we are not going to do anything until we have see this is the plan, okay who are going to be the strategic investors? There are many people that come in and say well we would be interested, but we don’t just want to jump at it, we need to have a plan and then we’re going to move forward. So I do believe that by the end of the next government we should have a cruise port and a modern container port. We all knew that Stake Bankwas short term or to medium term investment. Why? Because A, the berthing facilities cannot take the big ships and B, probably even more important, these cruise ships they want to berth on land. They don’t want to be tendering. It’s a big issue and so we knew that was a temporary fix and then eventually we have to build somewhere near shore.”

The Briceno Administration had acquired the Port of Belize following Cabinet’s approval in December 2023.  The facility was nationalized at a purchase price of just under one point seven million Belize dollars.