The Tribune

IT was indeed a grand affair. At last Baha Mar, scheduled for opening in December, 2014, was open. However, in the context of Baha Mar the word “open” has a very special meaning.

For the average person when a hotel is open it is indeed open for paying guests, but in the case of Baha Mar it is only open for “invited” guests.

Chow Tai Fook Enterprises Ltd CEO Graeme Davis confirmed that many of the guests in the hotel were not paying customers, but invited for a “preview period”. He also said that the official date for guest reservations is scheduled for May 29.

What this means is that the hotel will not be open – in the true meaning of the word “open” – until May 29, nineteen days after the general election.

It was indeed a grand show of “smoke and mirrors” carried off with carefully chosen words and great finesse.

However, photographs will show that had Baha Mar opened in 2015 far more areas would have been available to the public than were available on Friday. Many of the retail outlets remained closed. In 2015 they were open and ready for business. But having been shuttered for two years, mould and deterioration had taken its toll on the structure that had either to be replaced or repaired at great expense for yesterday’s affair. And still the work to bring it to the 2015 standard has yet to be completed.

It is understood that Zarkis Izmirlian, Baha Mar’s developer, had wanted to open Baha Mar in three stages. However, Chinese Export Bank, the lenders for the project, had not only insisted that CCA construction have the job, but that the resort be completed as one unit, not three. Apparently the bank did not approve of the three-stage openings, which, if done, would have started to generate revenue as each hotel opened.

However, through force of circumstance, Baha Mar will now be opened in three stages. The two-towered Grand Hyatt was the first to open “softly” on Friday.

“I am pleased that my Government has, with the co-operation of the stakeholders, achieved these lofty objectives. Not only has funding been provided to fund all remaining construction costs to complete the project, but some $101.5 million has been injected into the Bahamian economy towards payment of employees and unsecured creditors,” Prime Minister Christie told his listeners at Friday’s “soft” opening.

“This sum represents an unprecedented ex-gratia payment made by China Export Import Bank to unsecured creditors to accommodate the request of my government,” he said.

CEO Graeme Davis thanked stakeholders saying their contribution to the project allowed “mountains” to be moved.

“This magnificent structure you see before you is a testament of the vision conceived over 14 years ago by Sarkis Izmirilian,” he said. “Through the strength and spirit of the Bahamian people and the commitment of the Cheng family, Baha Mar is the result of what happens when great minds, great hearts and human determination come together. Mountains can be moved structures rise from the ground.”

One day the unvarnished truth of this project will be told. In the meantime we are pleased for those Bahamians who now have employment. We just hope they represent all political parties – after all they are all Bahamians with the freedom to vote for the party of their choice on May 10.

A lawyer’s crude behaviour

With rising violence — three murders over the Easter weekend, another last Thursday and three this weekend — we are shocked at a PLP lawyer, a Queen’s Counsel no less, encouraging Bahamians to retaliate violently during this political campaign.

“When they go low, we aim low,” he said. “You hear me? When they go low, we shoot low. Ain’t no high in this, because what we have had for the last five years is tolerating foolishness,” Wayne Munroe told a PLP mass rally at Arawak Cay. Mr Munroe, QC, is the PLP candidate for Free Town. What chance do the police have in urging the community to join them in their uphill battle against crime with this kind of talk from an aspiring parliamentarian? Mr Munroe, who spends much time defending accused who are in front of the courts because of this very same uncontrollable anger that leads to violence, gets up in front of a crowd and encourages more violence. Instead of setting an example and lifting a people out of the gutter of anti-social behaviour, he encourages them to “go low and shoot low”.

He scoffed at First Lady Michelle Obama’s advice to the American people during America’s recent election campaign: “You don’t stoop to their level,” she told Americans, “our motto is when they go low, we go high”.

But here in The Bahamas, where many of us are trying to lift young people to a higher level so that they can get a proper education and achieve more, we have a political leader encouraging them to wallow in the gutter of verbal abuse and violence.

Of all the leaks of political wrongdoing that have been published in this newspaper in the past few days, this behaviour of lawyer Wayne Munroe in our opinion is the worst. It certainly does no credit to any political party that he represents.

The late Sir Etienne Dupuch, the second publisher of this newspaper, often advised his children that if they ever wanted to help anyone to better themselves, they could not do it by getting into the gutter with them. Rather, he said, they should reach down and give the less fortunate a hand up. We recommend this to Mr Munroe.