Moorings could have been handled differently - Skelton-Cline
He shared those concerns while a guest on JTV's Big Story on Thursday evening March 17, 2022 as he weighed in on the recent measures taken by the Government to ensure compliance by the yachting industry.
“We need leaders in our country and in any walk of life, in the market place and or in our church and in our homes who have the courage and the clarity to lead,” he remarked.
He also noted that what is needed is leadership that is “willing to tell their truth to their people in love without diminishing the value of the individual for the benefit of the group”.
That was said as Skelton-Cline opined that considering the far reaching effect of hundreds of boats being given the cease operation order, other methods could have been used to penalise errant charter companies and boat owners.
He insisted, "What we have to be cautious about is not just what we do but how we go about doing what we do."
The commentator added, "in the context of our whole geo socio-economic, political construct particularly so for which we have been living in these past two years."
Coming from a tourism perspective, he said that due to the fact that the sector has been "flat on its face" for the past two years, "not just on its knees these last two years for reasons beyond our control and we are trying to prime the pump to get tourism back up to spec because tourism represents some 95% of our industry".
Building his argument, he expressed every confidence in the Department of Customs doing their job to the extent of saying he would put his head on the block.
Skelton-Cline is of the view that one of the Charter companies, Moorings, being the largest in the Territory, was indeed guilty of flunking the regulations and needs choking off but he added, "But how do you choke them off? Do you do it in the middle of a season that is about to ramp up given the background I just gave or do we find some other methodology behind the scene where you deal with Moorings and any others who are not compliant?"
According to Skelton-Cline, it does not look good for the Territory in the line of marketing for the tourism sector.
He added that, what the Territory could not afford at this time transpired as a result of the heavy crack-down, “All those stops those boats would make, all the drinks they would have bought, all the produce from the supermarkets to fill those boats, all of the value added ancillary things that brings to bare in an economy that is already down, that has been beaten down."
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32 Responses to “Moorings could have been handled differently - Skelton-Cline”
Yes part of it.
One love though.
... These boat companies playing with people lives. To long. Cline could say what he wants. Talk is cheap
These boats move on water not on land.
. He dont no a thing about boat
This joker is just repeating what he has read on Facebook. Man of the cloth? In St Maarten they call the cloth an ar** towel. Yeah, he’s a man of the cloth.
He is just trying to gain likes. Rules are rules no matter what. Plain and simple. Doesn't matter what they have done. This is more reason why they should have complied with the rules. This cr*** just trying to gain likes. I still say the govdid noting wrong. No one is above the law. Simple.