Commentary: Building an airport in Placencia should be a concern of Dangriga residents
Posted by editor on November 21 2009 00:00:00
While it may be a good idea to build an airport in the Stann Creek District near the village of Placencia, Dangriga residents should get involved in the debate to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of this airport to Dangriga Town. Currently, for almost eleven years now, Commerce Beight Pier...
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By Wellington C. Ramos

While it may be a good idea to build an airport in the Stann Creek District near the village of Placencia, Dangriga residents should get involved in the debate to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of this airport to Dangriga Town.

Currently, for almost eleven years now, Commerce Beight Pier commonly known as Jettie Pier is there dormant without being used and not creating any jobs for the residents of Dangriga like it was doing for decades. This pier is known by all Belizeans as the best port and harbor our country possesses for the loading and unloading of cargo because of its natural depth and the safety of large vessels when encountering severe storms during the hurricane season.

Born in Dangriga Town, the cultural capital of Belize, Wellington Ramos has an MA in Urban Studies from Long Island University
The oil and citrus industries are appealing to this new government to re-open this pier so that they can ship their cargoes through this port at a lesser cost. Big Creek is about forty miles away near the site where this proposed airport is going to be built. Due to the closeness of this airport to Big Creek, in my opinion they will take away more businesses from the Commerce Beight Pier and could provide more jobs and boost to the economies of the surrounding villages such as; Seine Beight, Mango Creek, Placencia, Cow Pen and others. My concern is also that the growth to Placencia and Mango Creek will allow these two villages to surpass the gain in growth by Dangriga Town, which could make them cities in the near future while Dangriga remains economically stagnant and depressing as a town.

This is the time for our Representative, Honorable Arthur Roches, to get involved in this debate and ask some serious questions on how this project will impact the residents of his constituency. Dangriga residents have been told that this new government intended to re-open the Commerce Beight Pier one year ago. While the pier is closed, Dangriga residents are waiting and looking for work to feed their families and their children.

The decision to re-open the pier is taking too long and is causing undue suffering for the residents of our town. The past government gave a contract to one of their relatives Luke Espat to lease this facility without the consent and approval of the people of Dangriga, who are the legitimate heirs to this facility because they have been living there for years. Luke Espat is not from Dangriga and is not doing anything to improve the quality of living in Dangriga Town.

In fact, he has contributed more to the people’s suffering by denying them the right to go to the pier and fish, and keeping it closed so that no vessels can dock there to provide them with the loading and unloading jobs they have been doing over the years to survive. To engage in the discussion with this new airport project that the government is approving, is a wise thing for us to do.

If it is done under the auspices of Economic Development, then all the residents of Stann Creek District should know how their villages and towns stand to gain from it. Having two airports is not a bad idea for a growing country like ours. It could help to increase the amount of trade and commerce in Belize and lower airfares for tourist and Belizeans coming home on their vacations. However, as a native of Dangriga Town, I am looking at the wider implications this project will have to my hometown and its residents.

Dangriga Town is growing so fast that it also has the potential to become one of Belize’s best cities because it provides everything that one needs to see in the whole country of Belize within minutes of each other. With its beautiful beaches, you can be at the beach leave it and get into the valleys and observe the beautiful tropical rainforest just twelve miles on the Hummingbird Highway. It is also centrally located on the coast of Belize to reach all the other coastal districts, cayes and the neighboring countries of Honduras and Guatemala. If for some reason you need to go to the capital Belmopan to conduct your business, it is just fifty miles up the road from Dangriga Town.

If Dangriga Town is going to become a city in the near future, economic planning must be done now. All the economic activities that used to benefit the town are no longer in existence today. With the decline in farming, fishing and huge lands owned by the Dangriga families, their younger generation find themselves idle, daily looking for something to do. Dangriga residents who were born and raised in that town have seen it at its best.

For us to see this town in the condition it is in today is painful to watch. Let us pledge as Dangriga residents that we intend to do whatever we can to make Dangriga Town the true culture economic capital of Belize.