[caption id="attachment_11819" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Minister of Tourism, Manuel Heredia, has failed to provide leadership in the Cruise Tourism Industry"][/caption] Royal Caribbean and Carnival “fed up” with Belize GOB Belize City, January 25, 2012 Members attending the annual FCCA (Florida Cruise Companies Association) meeting in Florida this weekend got the clear message “present operating conditions in Belize endanger the future of Belize’s Cruise Tourism Industry”. Operating companies such as Royal Caribbean and Carnival stated openly that they were “fed up” with the indecisiveness of this government and its relevant parties to resolve issues such as tendering, crime and marine safety. Attending the meeting for GOB were, among others, Lindsay Garbutt, the CEO Tourism, and Kevin Gonzalez, BTB’s CEO. Some of the most well known personalities in the Industry were there including Mike McFaden, Cruise Tourism renowned specialist. Mention was made of last week’s cancellation of two of Carnival’s newest and largest ships, the MV Valor and MV Glory. Each cancelled ship hits Belizeans in the pocket by some $320,000. Thanks to a “Do Nothing” government, last week Belizeans lost $640,000 that could have put food on the table for their loved ones. Ten years ago when the then PUP Government absorbed an abundance of criticism by taking the bold and visionary step of working with the private sector to develop the Belize Tourism Village, Cruise Tourism soared from 43,000 to almost a 1,000,000 tourist coming to our shores to spend and buy our goods and services. Thousands of jobs were created, hundreds of new productive opportunities were invested in. Belize was on the move with its many attractions and loving people to become the crown jewel in the Cruise Tourism Industry. Since then, the PUP advanced the agenda every year to keep the companies involved interested in growing Belize as a destination. The next step was to build a facility to dock the ships providing more safety and security for the Cruise Tourist and their hosts. Since the Government changed absolutely nothing new has happened, as a matter of fact when we hear on the news about this industry it is because someone was robbed, arrested or there is utter chaos in some corner of a now misgoverned industry. If the Valor and Glory (4,500 passengers) find our facilities lacking, how will we attract the Oasis class (5,000 passengers plus) or worst the upcoming Genesis class (6,000 passengers plus)? ...

Not funny… I’m generally a happy, jovial sort of guy, content to poke fun at others. Hell, when I get bored enough I even poke fun at myself, just to show you what a genuinely joyful person I am. But this week’s column won’t be hilarious or cute or even hilariously cute. This isn’t the time for that. The mocha monster otherwise known as Dean Oliver and a whole other mess of less complimentary names wants to call general elections sooner, rather than later. No worries, mini-Mugabe…we ain’t never scared. Belizeans know that Dean O only has one game plan and the fear is that his election strategy will be to try and steal this one. We gotta turn up the heat just a notch, don’t we? ……………………. You smelling it yet? The mocha dude kicked off his tour way up north in Corozal Southeast and to be nice to our beloved PM let’s just say it was a monumental, catastrophic, gargantuan flop! Of course this should be no surprise at all, since the smooth talking, pontificating PM ain’t never been liked up north. Hell, who can even understand half of the words coming out of his mouth? Check it out…the red brigade pulled out all the politicos from the north, all the paid generals and paid foot-soldiers and all the lackeys and still couldn’t assemble more than 200 people. I got a little worried when I watched Jules’ news story on Channel 7 and he made mention of buses streaming in – then I realized that the fellow must have been caught in traffic by the Corozal Bus Terminal and saw commuter buses heading to Chetumal and he got confused. No worries Jules, we understand. But yeah, I can’t imagine the mocha man being too pleased with the reception he got. But I figure by the time he visits a couple other destinations he’ll be used to it for sure… ………………………. You’ve gotta be kidding… I mean, seriously? The idiots in red have launched a series of pre-election campaign ads which have left me dumbfounded. Now my few friends will tell you that I am frequently dumb, but very rarely dumbfounded. Look at the one on health, for example. According to the UDP, they have made amazing strides in health since 2008. I have no doubt that came as a great surprise to Minister of Health Pablo Marin. Hell, it came as a surprise to Belizeans ...

The UDP Cabinet of political and intellectual dunces is not only considered a joke and a farce by many Belizeans, but this week will go down in the archives as this newspaper’s Hypocrites of the Week. Collectively, the Cabinet holds tremendous decision making power in the country, and with that power a tremendous responsibility to the people of this nation. That body of dim-bulbs has taken all our people for fools and is running Belize into the ground. While so many issues have been hitting Belizeans daily, the Cabinet has remained for the most part blind, deaf and mute. Our people have been faced with a crippling economic recession, rising cost of living, steadily rising fuel costs, education crises, the Kendall Bridge, crises in health and allegations of corruption in almost every department and level of government. Cabinet has said nothing. When our nation was dubbed the murder capital of the world by the Economist, Cabinet said nothing. As grenades exploded in our streets and Belizeans experienced a new era of urban terrorism, Cabinet said nothing. As our young men were gunned down daily and innocent victims lay paralyzed by stray bullets, our Cabinet said nothing. Despite week after week of the most stunning revelations of misappropriation of funds and corruption in the Belize City Council, Cabinet said nothing. Even now the City Council is embroiled in the latest round of scandal and missing money, and Cabinet has said nothing. So many issues, so much suffering by our people and Cabinet has said nothing. Instead, every week a sentence or two on a Cabinet release revealed that our Ministers had discussed the latest gala that would be attended by the Prime Minister abroad, or who would be acting in his absence, or World Food Day. Petty nonsense discussed by our Cabinet while our people are bombarded with critical issues. Now we understand that while our military has had to take to the streets to rein in crime, the discussion in Cabinet was about a liquor license issued to former UDP National Campaign Manager Karim Berges. We understand that while our streets are now filled with BDF soldiers wielding machine guns because our Police Department couldn’t handle the job, our Ministers were fully engaged in jostling over whether Mr. Berges should get a license or not. Our Cabinet of Hypocrites and fools should be ...

[caption id="attachment_11807" align="alignleft" width="288" caption="Despite his disgraceful and shameful record as Minister of National Security Carlos Perdomo gets to be Acting PM"][/caption] Belize City, January 18, 2011 This is scary. For the next five days Belize’s maximum leader of government will BY DEFAULT be a failed Minister of Government whose disgraceful record of protecting Belize’s national security caused national embarrassment and forced his replacement as candidate in the upcoming elections. Belizeans cannot sleep well at night knowing Carlos Perdomo is presently the acting Prime Minister of Belize. Perdomo has been the worst Minister of National Security Belize ever. Under his watch, the nation’s security came under constant attack and the scandals over allegations of visa and passport sales were abound. Planes carrying drugs and trafficking humans landed on our national highways and our airport late at night. Suspect individuals carrying legit visas entered and passed through our country, with little security checks. In fact, even after Perdomo’s National Security portfolio was stripped, and he was given Defense and Immigration – the blunders continued. It was under his watch that the Belize Defense Force compound was breached and the highest security officers’ armoury was broken into. The result was that dozens of high-powered weapons were stolen. It is also under his watch that Belize’s borders are under constant attack, with absolutely no intervention from Government. Is this how the Barrow Administration rewards incompetence and shame? While having the disgraced Minister as the maximum decision-maker is frightening, the reason behind it is worrying. The actual PM is on another 5-day hiatus. Actually, since November last year, Prime Minister Dean Barrow has been exiting the country every three weeks. Barrow left the country on Saturday once more to accompany his wife who is receiving chemotherapy as part of her breast cancer treatment in Miami. Since coming to office, Barrow has been flown out of the country constantly. Our checks between 2009 and 2011 show he was away in February 2009, April 2009, June 2009, August 2009, November 2009, April 2010, June 2010, July 2010, August 2010, October 2010, January 2011, August 2011, September 2011 and October 2011, just to name a few instances. Prime Minister Barrow’s approach to governance over the last four years has been about ‘que sera, sera’… ‘whatever will be, will be’. This is why the economy is now in shambles, the infrastructure all over the country ...

Belize City, Friday, January 13, 2012 The Kitkat Babba Shop softballers posted back to back wins in the Belize City interoffice softball competition which continued at the home of softball at the Rogers Stadium last Wednesday and Friday nights. The Kitkat hitters outlasted Belize Telemedia 15-14 on Wednesday. Kevin Siroki, Leonard Linares, Bryan Grant and Joseph Alvarez gave Kitkat a 4-0 lead when they came home in the 1st inning, and Kitkat extended the lead to 7-0 when Siroki, Linares and Belisle came home in the second inning. But the Telemedia hitters soon tied the score when pitcher Bernard Pitts, Kimni Williams, Francis usher, Lupito Acosta, Omar Gordon, Ryan Rivero and Tamara Ramsey all came home in the top of the 3rd inning, only to see Kitkat regain the lead 9-7 when Siroki and Bryan Grant came home in the bottom of the 3rd. Joseph Alvarez made it 10-7 when he scored in the 4th inning, but Telemedia recovered slightly to trail 9-10 when Grodion and Ramsey came home again in the top of the 5th inning. Linares, Belisle and Grant extended the Kitkat lead to 13-9 in the bottom of the 6th, but Telemedia forced the game into an 8th inning tie-breaker when Pitts, Williams, Acosta and Omar Alpuche came home to tie the score 13-13. The Telemedia hitters finally took the lead 14-13 when Ramsey scored in the top of the 8th, but Kitkat secured the win when Belisle and Grant came home in the bottom of the 8th inning. Kitkat posted another 14-7 win by mercy rule over their sister squad Babbashop Kitkat, leading 5-0 when Caryl Meighan, Woodye, Linares, Grant and Tommy Shaw came home in the 1st inning and they extended their lead to 8-0 when Meighan, Linares and Shaw rounded the bases again in the 2nd inning. They led 9-0 after Grant scored again in the 4th. Babba shop finally got on the scoreboard when Jason Jenkins scored their first run in the 4th inning, and Mark Ramsey, Adelita Gillett, Jenkins, Gilbert Gillett, Sherston O’brien and Luigi Saldivar scored 6 more runs in the 5th inning, but they were still down 7-9, when Meighan, Woodye, Linares, Grant and Joseph Alvarez scored 5 more runs in the 5th for the 14-7 win.

1.      Considering that the Minister of Immigration has declared that there will be no more visas issued from Havana, would he be willing to disclose just how many visas have been issued so far by UDP Ambassador to Cuba Said ‘Badi’ Guerra and to whom? 2.      Would the Minister of National Security be able to confirm or deny reports that an employee of his Ministry who is married to the younger sister of another UDP Minister and also works in that Ministry handled the rental of the vans which carried the smuggled Chinese nationals to their border crossing up north? 3.      Would the Minister of Police be willing to provide details of his so-called investigation into the Civil Aviation Department which is managed by his brother? And would the Minister further be able to respond to allegations that he cleared the Civil Aviation Department before an actual investigation was even conducted? 4.      Would the Prime Minister be able to say when his handpicked Music Ambassador who is also his son and enjoys all diplomatic perks will produce the promised song about Belize, or in fact do anything at all which can classify as representation of our nation?