C.E.O. Mike Singh's inflammatory statements on Facebook

Mike Singh

According to Krohn, while the fifty million U.S. dollar project is unwarranted, it is largely the brainchild of former C.E.O. in the Ministry of Tourism, Mike Singh.� Singh, who is now second in command of the Ministry of Trade and Investment, has been engaged in a back and forth with several individuals, including Mary Toy, a conservationist from Placencia, over social media.� In a recent Facebook post, Singh attributes the introduction of sex tourism, excessive foreign employment, drugs and wholesale tax evasion to overnight tourism.� Not surprisingly, the statement has raised the ire Krohn and others in the tourism industry.

Stewart Krohn

Stewart Krohn, President, Placencia Chapter B.T.I.A.

"Nobody asked for this project, nobody.� It wasn't in any manifesto of any political party.� This was Mike's baby.� He brought this as his own thing.� Apparently he has some special affinity for cruise lines and for NCL in particular, but I think it's a sign that Mike and his people at NCL growing increasingly desperate because I am not on Facebook okay, but people send me various postings from Facebook because they know I'm interested and one comment he made on April eighteenth, on one of the Placencia sites was that he was comparing overnight tourism to cruise tourism and he makes a very insulting claim that it was overnight tourism that introduced sex tourism to Belize.� It was overnight tourism that introduced drugs to Belize, that it was overnight tourism that engages in massive tax evasion and massive diversion of foreign currency into foreign banks.� I mean this is a man who was the C.E.O. in the Ministry of Tourism, okay.� Tourism, particularly overnight tourism, is the biggest part of Belize's economy.� It is the largest employer, it is the largest foreign exchange earner and this guy who was C.E.O. now comes, that he is no longer C.E.O. in tourism, now insults the overnight tourism industry by saying we introduced sex tourism, drugs tourism, we engaged in massive tax evasion, we divert foreign currency.� Well, if all these things were true when Mike was C.E.O. why didn't Mike speak out against these things?� All of a sudden, now that he is in the pockets of the cruise lines, now Mike suddenly is the biggest enemy of overnight tourism.� It's my feeling Isani that Mike Singh: A, he should lose his job like Mr. Sterling lost his job for the statements he made but Mike Singh owes the tourism industry in this country, he owes the people who created and sustained overnight tourism and brought it from nothing to being the country's largest industry, he owes all of those people a very strong apology for the remarks that he said and remarks that he will not even deny.� He will admit that he said them.� He will say that they were taken out of context.� There's no out of context, you find that posting and you show it to your viewers verbatim and then let's see what Mike Singh has to say defend himself."


Has NCL signed environmental compliance plan with D.O.E.?

Stewart Krohn

The battle between the Belize Tourism Industry Association, Norwegian Cruise Line and the Government of Belize over the construction of a proposed port of call at Harvest Caye will imminently be waged in the Supreme Court.� B.T.I.A., having written the Department of the Environment concerning the approval of an environmental impact assessment for NCL to proceed with the development project, has indicated that it will be seeking a judicial review of the matter.� News Five understands that an application will be filed by the end of the week.� While NCL says that it is going ahead with the multimillion dollar project, President of the Placencia Chapter of B.T.I.A., Stewart Krohn says that there is uncertainty as to whether an environmental compliance plan has been signed by Norwegian and D.O.E.� Krohn maintains that the company is mainly out to squeeze every dollar from the cruise tourism industry.

Stewart Krohn, President, Placencia Chapter B.T.I.A.

"We don't even know if Norwegian and the Department of the Environment have even signed the ECP [Environmental Compliance Plan] for the project.� What we do know from various sources in DOE is that there was quite a bit of back and forth going on about monitoring fees.� For example, the DOE has, as part of their ECP process, made an assessment of what NCL needs to pay for the monitoring of its project and I think DOE did its normal due diligence, came up with a figure and then NCL came back and said, no, no, no that figure is way, way too high.� It shouldn't be so high.� And the last I heard they were trying to negotiate that figure down but it's typical of the way NCL operates and the way all the cruise lines operate really.� They think that they bring something special to the table when, in fact, they bring nothing to the table at all.� Now you could imagine if this is the way they behave now, they try and squeeze every little concession out of the country, every little half a cent they want in their pocket instead of our pocket, if that's the way they behave now how do you think they're going to behave when they already have the twenty-five year concession.� They are out to pin this country against the wall and they will have us in a legal bind where we can't touch them."

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