The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Freeport stakeholders were yesterday interpreting statements by Prime Minister Perry Christie as a clear indication the Government will use upcoming negotiations over the city’s expiring incentives as leverage to secure a Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) ownership change.

For Mr Christie, in thinly-veiled language employed at the Grand Bahama Business Outlook conference, warned the Hayward and St George families that they needed to pick up “the baton” passed by their respective patriarchs.

In a clear indication of his desire to see progress at both the GBPA and Freeport, Mr Christie said: “The Grand Bahama Port Authority needs a new dynamic business plan, and it must engage in a vigorous programme of promotion, while embracing new partners with the necessary know-how and capital, working hand-in-hand with government and other stakeholders.”

Effectively urging the GBPA and its two families to ‘get a move on’, he called on them to use Freeport’s existing infrastructure and ‘free trade zone’ model to “reposition” the city and Grand Bahama via the attraction of new investments.

Freeport has not attracted a major, ‘game-changing’ investor for over a decade, and the Prime Minister followed up his Outlook speech at a press conference where he effectively pledged all possible help from the Government to any bona fide GBPA purchasers who emerge.

Tribune Business previously revealed that the late Sir Jack Hayward had been talking to UK-based Highgrove Securities and Kell Ryan over selling his family’s 50 per cent stake, although the St Georges were said to be unimpressed with the deal terms on offer.

However, one Freeport stakeholder, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Tribune Business that he interpreted Mr Christie’s remarks thus: “The Government is four-square behind causing the families to sell.”

The Prime Minister, at his post-Outlook press conference, where he confirmed the committee members who will lead discussions on Freeport’s future, said the assistance this body would provide the Government would be of “immense value” in assessing would-be GBPA purchasers.

Tribune Business’s source said this meant the committee, chaired by ex-Cabinet minister, Dr Marcus Bethel, would “advise how best we can cause a change in ownership at the Port Authority to happen”.

“The bottom line is you can do whatever you want, but the families have to go,” the source, who attended the press conference, said of the Government’s instructions to the committee.

And, in what they interpreted as a snub, the source said no member of either family or the GBPA’s management team was invited to the press conference.

It was also held at a time that coincided with when Sarah St George and Ian Rolle, the Port Authority’s president, were addressing the Outlook conference, thus taking a substantial number of attendees away from their speeches.

“That’s a real slap in the face, and tells you something,” the source said, adding that the Government would use the talks over Freeport’s expiring Business Licence and real property tax exemptions to force the families to sell.

Mr Christie expressed concern that Grand Bahama’s economic performance will remain “sub-par” relative to other Bahamian islands, and further indicated the Government was seeking to ‘box in’ the GBPA with the statement that it wanted to “align” its quasi-regulatory powers with the Government’s policies.

Mr Christie said his other objectives were a long-term economic development plan for Grand Bahama and the creation of an “immediate” investment promotion framework, while also ensuring any Business Licence and real property taxes balanced economic growth with the Government’s revenue needs.

Mr Rolle, meanwhile, used his Outlook address to outline the GBPA’s goal of doubling annual cruise visitors to Freeport from 1.4 million to 2.8 million within five years.

He added that the GBPA also wanted the Immigration regime to be tweaked to give foreign residents who purchased property worth $500,000 or more the right to work in their own business.