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By Andrea Rodriguez . Associated Press Writer.
Jacksonville.com, Florida.
HAVANA (AP) - The cruise ship operator that announced plans for a ferry
service starting this month between Tampa, Fla., and the Cuban port of Matanzas
hasn't sought communist government approval, a transportation ministry official
said Thursday.
"We found out about it in the press," Silvio Calves, a ministry
consultant, told a news conference here about a growing number of cruise ship
visits to the island. "We have not received any requests."
"There are a lot of companies that want to have transportation links
with Cuba ... but it requires official paperwork," said Calves.
A telephone message left with a representative at the ferry operator's Tampa
offices was not immediately returned Thursday evening.
The operator of the Scotia Prince ferry announced in late January that it
wanted to run a weekly Tampa-Matanzas ocean shuttle to allow people with
relatives on the island to carry in more food and other humanitarian aid.
Company chairman Matthew Hudson at the time set Feb. 25 as a possible start
date.
The 12,000-ton ship can accommodate 1,000 passengers and 200 vehicles.
Hudson's plan was to fill the vehicle bay with food and other supplies for
Cubans on the island.
The service was to be limited to people who have relatives on the island and
each passenger was to be allowed to carry up to 100 cubic feet of cargo, much
more than that allowed by the airline charters to Cuba.
Officials for Silares, a Cuban-Italian company that operates Cuba's
terminals for cruise ships and ferries, said Thursday they also had not been
contacted by Scotia Prince Cruises or its Yucatan Express service.
"It is not very realistic to think about a business without making
requests," Silares official Alfonso Lavarello told the Thursday news
conference in Havana.
Hudson said told a news conference in Tampa in late January that the
475-foot (142.5 (meter)- M/S Scotia Prince Ferry service between Tampa and
Matanzas would last 10 weeks. Afterward, the ship would return to its regular
summer service between Portland, Maine, and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, he said.
At the time, Hudson said that the cruise line applied for a license from the
U.S. Treasury Department for the service. That was later confirmed by treasury
officials, who said they did not know how long the process would take.
Under the four-decade-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, only charter
airlines from Miami, New York and Los Angeles have American government licenses
to legally provide direct passenger service between the United States and the
island.
Last year, the airline charters flew 160,000 Americans to Cuba, most of them
Cuban-Americans but also people with approved professional or educational
reasons for visiting. | 
