The Tribune

By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

TERRENCE Gape, a leading commercial lawyer, yesterday called Grand Bahama “the Forgotten Island” and said the present ownership families of the Grand Bahama Port Authority “need to go in order for there to be effective change in the direction of Freeport”.

Mr Gape, senior partner at Dupuch & Turnquest and head of its Freeport Chambers, believes that the ownership of the Port Authority and its assets, which includes DevCo, should be in the hands of a developer.

“It was not meant to be a fiefdom to be handed down to new generations. Our experience of the last 12 years is proof of this,” he told a Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Pelican Bay Resort yesterday.

Following the deaths of the Port Authority principal owners Sir Jack Hayward and Edward St George, entities around the world are expressing interest in the purchase of the GBPA, which oversees the management of Freeport, a 230-square-mile economic free-trade zone.  

“I am embarrassed to say here publicly that free enterprise has failed us and I agree with Sir Jack Hayward’s own reported opinion often recently expressed that the present ownership families ‘need to go’,” he said.

Mr Gape said that “given the failure of the ownership families, especially over the past 12 years and the continuing deteriorating relationship with Hutchison, that effective change in the direction of Freeport can only happen when this sale by the ownership families takes place, and soon.”

He indicated that the island is in dire need of development investors, especially in the luxury condominium, condominium hotel and second home markets, which is booming in New Providence and the other islands of the Bahamas, including Abaco and Exuma.   

 Mr Gape noted that the when the government extended the tax exemptions of the Hawksbill Creek Agreement (HCA) in 1993, one of the major conditions was the establishment by the Port and DevCo of a project management office (PMO), an organisation to promote Grand Bahama internationally.

“This PMO was never established and, accordingly, especially after the perfect storms of 2004, our island was and remains forgotten,” he said.  

He believes that the government and the HCA Review Committee, appointed by the Prime Minister to lead discussions on Freeport’s expiring investment incentives and long-term future, should recommend the establishment of a PMO fully funded by the Port Authority and DevCo, to be made up of a board of directors, comprising persons from government, the Port Authority, Devco and the licencees.  

Exemptions for business licence fees and real property tax in the HCA will expire on August 4.

Mr Gape thinks that there needs to be an organised group of two or three professionals continuously at seminars, private meetings and marketing events in Florida and other parts of the world, bringing international groups to invest in Grand Bahama.

He noted that in the nearby Florida market alone there are 20 multi-billion dollar development groups developing 100,000 luxury condominium units, most of which will be completed at the end of 2015.

“These groups are going to be looking for places to go. The Bahamas is hot and Freeport need not miss this second boom period - we missed the boom of 2002-2008 completely for lack of this PMO and we are now missing the current boom which started in 2011 for the same reason,” said Mr Gape.

He believes that new investors and land sales have been, and are still being, stymied because of the present owners of the land (of which DevCo and the ownership families own the larger part) have no carrying cost.

“I have changed my previous opinion that the Real Property Tax exemption should not be extended. I now believe that exemption should be extended for a further 10 years, subject to the establishment of the PMO as I described before and perhaps a proviso that any and all undeveloped land should pay Real Property Tax if it remains undeveloped after the next five years, in any event,” said Mr Gape.

Mr Gape said that aside from the depressing state of the economic affairs of Freeport, he is “excited about the prospects that is before us in this exciting year of 2015, to bring about change in our wonderful town, to cause it to be the work engine and job production engine that it should be for the whole Bahamas”.