The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

According to the Bahamian press, as well as the Prime Minister and Mr Winder himself, Sarkis Izmirlian’s offer to buy back Baha Mar seems to be unbeatable.

But there is a Gorilla in the room.

Mr Izmirlian has a condition that can hardly be attractive to the Chinese Exim Bank, regardless of their loan being paid in full. The Gorilla is that CCA Bahamas, a “cousin company” be removed as the contractor to finish this project.

In other words for the Chinese Government-owned Exim bank to be made whole, another Chinese Government-owned company would be removed from completing the project. Traditionally Chinese would rather lose money than loosing “face”.

Then there is the disturbing speculation that the owner of the Pointe in Nassau, CCA Bahamas is one of the parties interested in “taking over” Baha Mar.  

CCA America may be a world-wide contractor but it has a past record that is hardly commendable as a responsible contractor, not to mention as a resort operator.

Blacklisted by the World Bank for numerous projects infected with the same virus that brought down Baha Mar, CCA is hardly qualified to be an operator of Baha Mar.

Regardless of how the (surely opaque) financial agreements might be arranged between two Chinese government owned companies, the future financial health of this country is extremely dependent on Baha Mar being a success as a resort. Getting the best price for the project is not necessarily in the best interests of this country.

Rather, it is getting the best price from the most competent operator of this resort.

The liquidators should have a duty to not only get the best price for this mega resort which is so big that the failure of Baha Mar as a business would surely have an unknowable disastrously negative affect on the financial future of The Bahamas, but they should also have an interest in picking an investor that can fire up this financial engine in the best interests of the Bahamas.

CURTIS CAMPAIGNE

Nassau,

May 1, 2016.