By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
PRIME Minister Perry Christie acknowledged yesterday that the continuing impasse at Baha Mar could result in the resort eventually lacking the capacity to pay the thousands of people currently on its payroll.
It has been weeks since work at Baha Mar came to a halt due to a dispute with the developer and the resort’s main contractor. This came after months of hiring exercises at the $3.5 billion project.
Mr Christie’s comments mark the second time he has publicly
acknowledged that the deadlock at the resort threatens the financial stability of its employees.
He called his efforts to get the project going again his “single greatest obligation” right now “in terms of daily governance”.
Mr Christie added: “I have a number of meetings today (Thursday) with respect to Baha Mar. Thousands of Bahamians have made decisions to go and work there and every day is a day of challenge and we could see it coming where the point could be reached where the developer says ‘I could no longer carry a payroll’ and so I am now directly involved in a very meaningful way in that exercise to try and bring a resolution to it. It is what it is right now.”
Mr Christie said he has had “extensive chats” with Baha Mar CEO Sarkis Izmirlian about the state of the project.
Mr Christie said: “I’m just telling you that people are being paid today by the developer. People are on the payroll – thousands. Our job is to recognise that when the hotel is closed and remains closed and unfinished, there is only so much of that that can be continued for so long. There is a national urgency about this.”
Asked about the matter yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said he does not believe Baha Mar could set a new opening date until the current issue is resolved.
For years the government has pointed to Baha Mar’s eventual opening as the economy’s best hope for growth and job provision.
Now, Mr Christie finds himself fighting to ensure that the resort’s existing employees keep their jobs amid wide ranging speculation about when the resort will open.
Baha Mar is expected to employ some 5,000 people when it is completely open. In the meantime, around 1,000 employees already working at the resort have been reassigned to areas outside of the positions for which they were hired – such as clean up and security watch.
During a House of Assembly session on Wednesday, Mr Christie said he had received “encouraging” news about a possible impending resolution to the deadlock.
Without giving details, he noted that Mr Izmirlian was expected to land in the Bahamas Wednesday night following a trip to China where he had discussed the matter with officials. The China Export-Import Bank is a financier of the project. It is understood that China Export-Import Bank agreed the loan on condition that China Construction America was employed as the contractor.
Baha Mar is nearly six months behind its December 2014 opening date and has missed a March 27 soft opening. The property was finally expected to open in early May, but issues with the resort’s main contractor have contributed to continued delays.
Comments
realfreethinker 8 years, 10 months ago
Wow what a tragedy. For weeks we were told a solution is imminent,now this. The government and Bahamar should have been up front and said what is going on rather than his drip drip stuff. Is it too big to fail or too big to succeed ?
ohdrap4 8 years, 10 months ago
the bec management contract remained imminent for over a year, and is still imminent.
just one more malapropism.
watcher 8 years, 10 months ago
Another worrying aspect of this fiasco is that when (if) BahaMar is finally completed, there is now no guarantee that the tourists will flock to the destination. Travel agents, online travel sites and individuals will be closely following this story, and will be well within their rights to suggest that their clients go elsewhere for their vacation.
TalRussell 8 years, 10 months ago
Comrade PLP Cabinet forgive me scratching me head as to how you can go from a 3.5 billion dollar fully Chinese government backed project that was promoted over and over again by this same PLP Cabinet as the operational stimulus that would rescue a struggling economy - is now nothing more than an economic ghost tourism embarrassment to all Bahamalanders. Again, this PLP cabinet has demonstrated that until they have tried and tested each and every which ways to fail - only then do they step up to the plate - but how much more will the government give away to the Chinese to bribe them into completing Baha Mar?
Maybe Baha Mar was never the apple for the Chinese but a masquerade to gain control behind cabinet's closed doors to lay claim to our natural resources and even more of the nation's lands and beaches. Maybe now both PM Christie and Papa Hubert knows better than to strike a 3.5 billion dollar deal with the ruthless Chinese government. Even the USA's Embassy have the Chinese directly across the street - windows to widows, satellite to satellite. You goes figure that one out for ya self?
ThisIsOurs 8 years, 10 months ago
Said from the start that I thought the interest was proximity to the US mainland. Always wondered why the US allowed it to go as far as it has. But I must say I overlooked how close the Hilton was to the US Embassy...interesting
proudloudandfnm 8 years, 10 months ago
Is this the good news Perry promised us yesterday!?!?!?!?!?
My God!! This is a friggin satire!!!
newcitizen 8 years, 10 months ago
It was a good news bad news thing. Yesterday he said the good news is coming, today he says the bad news is he lied.
ThisIsOurs 8 years, 10 months ago
What is wrong with this man? He did say he had good news, I said thank God it's over, now he's talking about a "continuing" impasse? It should be a crime to misuse the people's sensibilities the way he does for his political shenanigans
hj 8 years, 10 months ago
Baha Mar employees may not get paid. Even if the project finishes,and I really hope it will,it may hire 5,000 people if successful. In the meantime 5,000-6,000 kids are coming out of school each year,most of them poorly educated,thanks to our politicians. The government has increased taxes through VAT and makes it more difficult for small businesses to survive through taxes and regulations. And PC is talking about the success of Carnival, BAMSI and VAT.
GrassRoot 8 years, 10 months ago
"Pm: Baha Mar Impasse May Mean Staff Can’T Be Paid" !!!? - my potcake has figured this out 5 years ago. How about seizing the Chinese Embassy and using it as the new House of Parliament until the situation is resolved?
TalRussell 8 years, 10 months ago
Comrade GrassRoot but which Chinese embassy will be seized - the official embassy or their unofficial embassy better known as The British Colonial Hotel?
GrassRoot 8 years, 10 months ago
We can make the British Colonial the new residency for the PM, a suitable humble place for our Great Leader.
Well_mudda_take_sic 8 years, 10 months ago
And now Christie has the audacity to say: "There is a national urgency about this"! This man is completely out of his league; the level of his incompetence and the incompetence of those he has selected to be in his cabinet is numbingly stupefying. Long ago (as far back as 2012) Christie should have appointed a special committee of the most competent Bahamians, possessing expertise in large construction projects, in the infrastructural and utility requirements for such large scale projects, in waste disposal, in the laws of the Bahamas and international law, in financing, in Chinese culture with the ability to speak and write mandarin, etc. to oversee the government's interest (and the country's interest) that this enormous single phase development project progress as smoothly as possible. Now Christie will propose a damage control committee of incompetents to cover up what went wrong as a result of his incompetence and the incompetence of his cabinet ministers who should have all along been closely involved in the monitoring and bringing to successful fruition of this vital project. He and his grossly incompetent cabinet ministers will no doubt go into their respective roles of Robin Hood and his merry bandits whereby they will once again seek to rob Peter in order to pay Paul. The most honourable and sensible thing Christie could possibly do now is immediately dissolve parliament so that a general election can be held to put in place individuals capable of sorting out the catastrophic mess created by his administration's dereliction of duty as regards the Baha Mar development.
lionfish 8 years, 10 months ago
If you have the word MAY in a statement it is not news because it means nothing. I MAY win the lottery tomorrow.
lionfish 8 years, 10 months ago
Perry needs to learn that sometimes you keep your mouth shut otherwise he MAY lose the election!
GrassRoot 8 years, 10 months ago
there MAY not ever be an election again in this country, the way the things are going with the governing Party. Who needs election anyway. Just costs money that can be used for other good and worthy causes.
happyfly 8 years, 10 months ago
For those of you that weren't around. Back in the day, Carnival Cruise Lines promised the defunct, drug riddled, foreign investor barren landscape of the Bahamas a crippled leg to stand on by building the Crystal Palace. Oooooh how it was going to reshape the economy in to one of pride and future benefits to all. The only catch was that Carnival needed 5,000 work permits for Bangladeshi's to build it and shortly thereafter they announced the hotel was not profitable and needed to be taken over by the hotel corporation (whilst Carnival got to keep the profit making casino operation) and for the next 20 years the whole operation ran at a stupendous cost to the Bahamian economy and ultimately ended up the discount dump of the Caribbean. That was PLP on Cable Beach last time around. Anyone see any similarities ??
ThisIsOurs 8 years, 10 months ago
Another Chinese ghost city? I really really pray not...
Reality_Check 8 years, 10 months ago
At the time they prepared the 2015/16 annual budget, Christie and Halkitis knew full well that the Bahamian employees of Baha Mar who were to be so generously assigned (at Baha Mar's expense) to the Urban Renewal Project would quickly end up on the government's payroll rather than remain on Baha Mar's payroll. Everything that has been done so far here has been nothing but a ploy to allow Robin Hood (Christie) and his merry bandits (the other members of Christie's cabinet) to save face and buy votes for the PLP in the next general election. This is why Christie and Halkitis allocated an additional $20 million to Urban Renewal in the 2015/16 annual budget - they knew the money would be needed to pay ongoing wages and salaries to many of the Bahamian workers that Baha Mar could no longer afford to employ. Christie had no choice but to dodge his contribution to the debate on the budget in the House of Assembly because he knew he had intentionally deceived the Bahamian people in his written budget communication and speech about the extent and severity of the problems at both Baha Mar and the Bank of The Bahamas (BOB). Christie knew his words in a budget debate could easily come back to haunt him in a most vicious way. Well before they finalized the 2015/16 budget, Christie and Halkitis had full knowledge about the extent and severity of the problems at both Baha Mar and BOB and their implications for the country's 2015/16 finances and the government's unrealistic economic forecasts. But true to form, the opposition led by Minnis failed in their contributions to the budget debate to call out Christie and Halkitis for their willful deception of the Bahamian people regarding the extent and severity of the problems.
ThisIsOurs 8 years, 10 months ago
Not sure how I feel about that. What always concerned me about Bahamar was their insistence that they were opening when it was visible to everybody that they couldn't open together with the fact that they've attracted some of our "best", this is the "dream team". These are not the people you want to be without jobs. These are the producers. The government can't subsidize them forever but if they give these people a cushion as opposed to a rabid disruptive campaign worker with no skills, I won't complain too much.
duppyVAT 8 years, 10 months ago
Yep ............ that $20 million for UR2.0 was to take care of these Bahamar exigencies ..... we never heard Brave said it because he did not contribute to the 2016 Budget ................ BOL
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