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When we asked Perez about the meeting, he said that while he agrees the island should have never been sold, there's no use crying over spilt milk and now the government must find a way to ensure that there is little to no environmental damage. Here's how he put it:

Andre Perez, Minister of Blue Economy
"It's no different, of course, I commend them for coming out, I know they're passionate about it and I don't want to use words that is going to create any kind of feelings, it's not my intention. But this issue with Cayo Rosario, we all know, I had meetings with the stakeholders just a week before to inform them. We had a very fruitful meeting and I informed them what is the issue at hand and we did have a meeting eventually with all the members of the relevant departments, as it relates to Cayo Rosario and we agreed that we had to work more closely together in terms of when we're issuing all these permits for development, not only for Cayo Rosario but we looked ahead into how we can do it better in the future."

"One of the things that we agreed on and made clear to the developers is that there must be compliance so anything that is not compliant will be reported to the relevant department so that is soon to be coming out and when that comes out we'll make it public and if we see anything that isn't compliant, it has to be stopped."

Courtney Menzies:
"We know that the mayor was there and he was saying we have to fight against this development. I take it that you don't side with him, or the government doesn't side with him?"

Andre Perez, Minister of Blue Economy
"Well I can't speak for the mayor, what was his idea but really at stake right here of course we are the government and we are not actually against our stakeholders. We are not against it, we are for development but at the same time we are very much in tune with what is conservation. sustainable is the key word to this so in terms of if the mayor was present, he's free to do that but for me, I already engaged with the stakeholders there to let them know what is happening. And it's not over yet, because we are still waiting for reports, what was the findings at Cayo Rosario. So it's for him to say, I have nothing to say, whether he spoke against the government or not, it's for you all to interpret. I take my stand that this Cayo Rosario project that we inherited, I think we need to be clear about that."

"That island should have never been sold from the very beginning. So that was the big mistake back then but why are we going to lament on it? But when we go to the previous administration, they knew that it shouldn't have been sold but yet they allowed the buyers to sell again and not only at this point they decided to sell again but to provide all of these concessions to build over the water."

"But I want to let you know that I remain calm, I remain focused. The endgame is compliance."