By NATARIO McKENZIE
Tribune Business Reporter
nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net
More than 1,700 former Baha Mar employees have registered with the Department of Labour to ensure they receive unemployment benefits from the National Insurance Board (NIB) and are in position to learn of job vacancies, Tribune Business was told yesterday.
Robert Farquharson, director of labour, said: “Since the Baha Mar debacle we would have registered in excess of 1,700 employees from Baha Mar. We would have registered them and assisted them with getting their unemployment benefits from the National Insurance Board. We would have placed a number of those employees in a position to be interviewed for some vacancies.”
He added: “I can’t say how many persons have been hired at this time; that’s still work in progress, but I know that we had initiated a number of internal mechanisms to ensure that those employees who were registered were considered for employment in other hotels and agencies.”
The Supreme Court in late October authorised the termination of 2,026 employees at the stalled $3.5 billion Cable Beach development. The joint provisional liquidators said the lay-offs were due to the financial insolvency of the resort project that has been in limbo since June 29. The unemployment rate stood at 14 per cent before the mass lay-offs.
On June 29, Baha Mar and 14 of its affiliated companies filed for bankruptcy in a Delaware court, blaming the resort’s contractor, China Construction America (CCA), for the construction delays that caused it to miss previous opening deadlines.
However, the bankruptcy protection for Baha Mar’s Bahamian-based companies was later thrown out. In reaction to the bankruptcy filing, the Government filed a winding-up petition against Baha Mar in the Supreme Court. The court later approved the appointed of the joint provisional liquidators, KRyS Global and UK-based AlixPartners.
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