The Tribune

IN Thursday’s Tribune, a letter writer tried to strip Prime Minister Christie of his legacy — Baha Mar.

Just as Atlantis is prime minister Ingraham’s legacy - a success story that transformed a “nation for sale” into a much sought after tourist resort — Mr Christie coveted Baha Mar as his legacy. The fact that Baha Mar has collapsed because of disastrous decisions does not justify this letter writer trying to blame its failure on Mr Ingraham. It is still Prime Minister Christie’s legacy - failure though it be.

Under the heading: “FNM must inquire of itself”, letter writer W Thompson argues that when the Baha Mar agreement was signed with the Chinese bank, it was signed under the Ingraham government. “The Baha Mar deal with EXIM was squarely a policy decision of the Rt. Hon. Hubert A Ingraham’s government…” Mr Thompson wrote.

What Mr Thompson fails to understand is that the Christie government before it was voted from government had already signed a heads of agreement with the Baha Mar developer – Mr Sarkis Izmirlian. This 2005 agreement was inherited by the Ingraham government.

It is true that this agreement, after amendment, was finally signed by the Ingraham government, but it became necessary because Mr Christie’s earlier dithering had created a void for the Chinese to step in and fill. So, it became an agreement of necessity, not one of policy. That does not mean that the Baha Mar concept was not a good idea. The Ingraham government had no say in the developer’s choice of partners. But as circumstances have now shown, the Christie government would have had no objection to the Beijing bank and its contractor being those partners.

In fact, the Baha Mar concept was given birth by Sarkis Izmiliran at the instigation of Mr Christie, during Mr Christie’s first term as prime minister. Mr Izmirlian, the developer, went ahead with his plans and lined up his Las Vegas partners – Harrah’s and Starwood. Heads of Agreement had been signed by the developer and the PLP government on April 6, 2005, but suddenly everything froze. In a letter of desperation, Mr Izmirlian told the Prime Minister: “If we cannot achieve the early February (2006) timeframe for accomplishing the above, I will have to inform Harrah’s and Starwood that despite my best efforts these past three odd years, the Government of the Bahamas has failed me. I certainly do not want to be known as the developer (and I’m certain you don’t want to be known as the Prime Minister) that lost Caesars and Starwood. Today, more than ever before, I need your unambiguous support, Mr Prime Minister.”

It was obvious that Prime Minister Christie, although he had laid the Heads of Agreement on the table of the House, would sign nothing before the election. As a matter of fact he was dragging out negotiations up to April 30, 2007 - two days before the election when his government was defeated.

If Mr Izmirlian’s 2006 deadline had been met Caesars and Starwood would have been his partners and Baha Mar would have been nearing completion before the economic collapse threw the world into a deep recession. Borrowing for such large developments had dried up. The Chinese were the only ones on the market still willing to lend. In desperation Mr Izmirlian walked into their offices in good faith and got trapped, taking the Bahamas government with him.

In a meeting with the Baha Mar/Izmirlian group, the Ingraham Opposition was told that because of a confidentiality issue the investors could not give the Opposition certain documents. “We were specifically informed by the proposed investors,” Sea Breeze MP Carl Bethel told the House on March 6, 2008, “that there remain secret clauses and/or agreements whose contents have, in fact, not been disclosed to the Bahamian people.”

And so instead of blaming then Prime Minister Ingraham for making the best of what has turned out to be a bad deal, Mr Thompson should be thankful that the Christie government was defeated when it was. Mr Ingraham was much criticised from PLP benches for taking so long to revise the Baha Mar agreement. But go over it he did with a fine tooth comb for which Bahamians should be grateful.

In the 2005 agreement the Christie government had agreed to sell the Development Bank building, the Gaming Board building and the portion of West Bay Street and the median. Mr Ingraham cancelled this sale. He also reduced the area to be used for Baha Mar back-of-house facilities on Gladstone Road from 70 acres and provided for the land to be leased and not sold to Baha Mar. He also required that the 99.78 acres of Water and Sewerage land be leased to Baha Mar and not sold as originally agreed in the Christie 2005 agreement. It was also agreed with Baha Mar that 71.40 acres of wetlands owned by Baha Mar was to be a “no build zone” for public use in perpetuity. Other concessions, in favour of the Bahamas, were also negotiated. However, if the Christie heads of agreement had been allowed to stand — the land in “the secret agreements” — would have been sold.

It was obvious that Mr Ingraham was still not happy with the agreement. But he had made the best of a bad deal.

When asked in the House of Assembly on November 18, 2010 what he would do if the Baha Mar agreement went wrong with a foreign state owning Crown land, he replied:

“It is the view of my government that it is an untenable position to permit any foreign State to own land in the Bahamas. Under the law, any financial institution providing funding for development in the Bahamas has a number of alternatives to protect their interest should that project fail. One of these is foreclosure …should this project not succeed, and I have no reason to believe that it will not, and should I be in the position that I now hold, my government would not agree to foreclose on these properties (previously Crown Land) to any foreign State or any entity which is owned by a foreign State.”

When Mr Christie, now the Prime Minister, supported the Chinese in their opposition to having the Baha Mar dispute heard under Chapter 11 in the Delaware bankruptcy court, pleading that to do so would disrespect our sovereignty, the Delaware judge threw the case out — not because he did not believe that Chapter 11 would have been the best solution for saving Baha Mar, but because the Bahamian court had made it clear that his judgment would not be recognised.

When this happened, Mr Ingraham wrote to Mr Christie – not once, but twice— advising him that it would be “a fundamentally bad decision” to put Baha Mar into liquidation. His advice was ignored.

Before any more bad decisions are made— particularly if the rumours are true about the type of investor now interested in Baha Mar – Bahamians would be well advised to insist that the final decision on Baha Mar be left until after next year’s election.