The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A well-known QC yesterday confirmed he has been instructed to launch Judicial Review proceedings against the Government and developers of the $5 million Blackbeard’s Cay project, and accused Cabinet Ministers of reneging on assurances not to approve the development.

Fred Smith QC, the Callenders & Co attorney and partner, told Tribune Business that the Save the Bays coalition had adopted the Blackbeard’s Cay project into its self-proclaimed crusade to safeguard the environment.

Mr Smith, who has emerged as the coalition’s chief spokesperson, said: “In keeping with Save the Bays’ commitment to protect the marine environment, pursue an Environmental Protection Act and considering the need for a Freedom of Information Act, Save the Bays has resolved to sue the Government on behalf of reearth.”

Reearth is the environmental activist group that has led the public opposition to the Blackbeard’s Cay project, particularly its planned dolphin facility. Its leader, Sam Duncombe, is also a member of the Save the Bays coalition.

“I have instructions to sue the developers and the Government,” Mr Smith continued. “Reearth pledges that it will hold this government accountable.

“A Supreme Court action for Judicial Review will shortly be launched. It has been initiated, and it takes a couple of weeks to draft it.”

Mr Smith told Tribune Business that reearth had received “all kinds of assurances behind the scenes from individual ministers” that the Government was not going to approve the Blackbeard’s Cay project, only for it to turn round and do the opposite.

“This again highlights the fundamental need for a Freedom of Information Act in the Bahamas,” he added. “If everything is done secretly, how are decisions ever to be objectively monitored by people who have an interest?”

Tribune Business revealed on Monday how a Judicial Review challenge to the permits and approvals granted to the Blackbeard’s Cay developers was likely to be initiated in the Supreme Court.

This came after the Government approved the project’s Business Licences - the final permits it needed. Sources close to the Blackbeard’s Cay developers, who also include the original Bahamian investor group, confirmed to Tribune Business they now have all the permits required to move ahead with the project. They also confirmed that the dolphins have begun to arrive on the Cay.

“Despite legitimate and serious inquiries by environmentalists such as Sam Duncombe regarding the plans for Blackbeard’s Cay, the Government - as they have been over Bimini, Guana Cay, San Salvador and countless other places in the Bahamas - have remained secretive and non-consultative with legitimate stakeholders,” Mr Smith told Tribune Business.

“It is unbelievable that, after so many years of trying to educate politicians at the highest level with respect to the very laws they themselves have passed, that we continue to bang our heads against the thick politician’s way of ignorance.”

Among reearth’s major concerns is whether the Blackbeard’s Cay project “circumvented” the process set out in the Planning and Subdivisions Act.

One of the Act’s requirements is that there be public consultation and Town Meetings on projects such as Blackbeard’s Cay prior to their approval. But, according to Mrs Duncombe, this never happened.

However, the Blackbeard’s Cay developers, who are headed by St Maarten businessman, Samir Andrawos, believe they have complied with everything required of them by the Government, with the latter’s site visits and inspections said to have gone well.

The developers have also pointed out that Nassau is desperately short of excursion/attraction/tour options for visiting cruise ship passengers, hence Blackbeard’s Cay’s design as a beach break getaway. They have pledged that the project will create 200 jobs

The developers have also pointed out that the existing ‘dolphin encounters’, at Atlantis and Blue Lagoon, lack the capacity to meet the demand from cruise ship passengers for such an attraction.

And they have denied that Blackbeard’s Cay is intended to monopolise the business brought to Nassau by Carnival, the world’s largest cruise line, which would deprive Bay Street of much-needed customer numbers and sales.

Blackbeard’s Cay is located on Balmoral Island, a site opposite Sandals Royal Bahamian resort on New Providence’s north coast. The Bahamian shareholders include Insurance Management chief, Cedric Saunders; Spanish Wells community leader, Abner Pinder; and well-known media owner, Charles Carter.

Mr Andrawos, who works very closely with Carnival through his tour/excursion businesses in the rest of the Caribbean, was brought in by its Bahamian shareholders to turn the destination around.