The Tribune

AS IF to make amends for an embarrassing blunder, the much troubled Baha Mar resort prepared dinner Thursday evening for Family Islanders who had been flown to Nassau and housed at the New Providence Community Centre to escape the wrath of Hurricane Irma.

Baha Mar, facing its first hurricane, was criticised for closing its doors to the approaching hurricane and informing its guests that if they could not leave The Bahamas, they should seek alternative “local shelter”.

Atlantis’ president and managing director was the first to express alarm. Howard Karawan found it not only “unacceptable”, but “alarming” that Baha Mar would close its doors to its “customers and the community” as a category 4 hurricane approached.

Sir Sol Kerzner — and especially his late son, “Butch” who had been accepted by Bahamians as one of their own — set the tone for Atlantis while under their ownership. Not only did they make their guests as comfortable as possible during a storm, but they opened the doors to welcome Bahamians who also needed shelter.

Mr Karawan, who is continuing in the Kerzner tradition, said that a major hotel on an island has a “moral obligation”, not only to provide shelter for its guests, but to support the community. The only reason, said Mr Karawan, that a hotel should close in the face of a hurricane would be if the hotel were not “built up to standard.” This comment harks back to the original problem that destroyed the Baha Mar dream.

We have heard many allegations about construction standards at the Baha Mar resort. We don’t know what is true or false, and none of us will ever know the full story until the court-sealed documents — sealed at the request of the China Export-Import Bank— are opened.

Baha Mar, which was six months behind its December 2014 opening — a date on which the contractor, China Construction America (CCA), had given the all clear for opening – then went on to miss two more set dates in March and May 2015. Finally, having been publicly embarrassed by the much publicised three missed opening dates, developer Sarkis Izmirlian drew the line in the sand — Chapter 11 Bankruptcy – Delaware was the destination. In an earlier statement it was claimed that the work on the property by China Construction America (CCA) had not met expected “standards of excellence” and was therefore, not acceptable.

On June 29, 2015, Mr Izmirlian announced that the Cable Beach resort had voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 in the United States so that Baha Mar’s construction could be completed and the property opened as soon as possible.

“I am committed to doing all I realistically can to move Baha Mar forward to be completed and opened successfully,” Mr Izmirlian had said at the time. “I am confident that, once opened, Baha Mar will be a world-class destination resort that will attract guests from around the world and serve as a key economic sparkplug for the Bahamas.”

This was a dispute between a developer and his contractor. Already the Izmirlian family had spent $850m of their own money on the $3 billion development.

If the Christie government had remained out of the argument, and let Chapter 11 go full term, Baha Mar would probably have been the shining star among resorts as was intended. And The Bahamas’ credit rating would not have been reduced to “junk‘‘ by Standard and Poor’s just before Christmas. Nor would Moody’s have had to give the new government a second chance by retaining the country’s Baa3 rating, but downgrading it from a positive to a negative outlook for the future. Everyone had pinned their future on Baha Mar’s success.

But, once government got into the fray, agreeing with EXIM bank and CCA that as most of the assets were in The Bahamas, whatever disputes there were should be decided in The Bahamas, failure loomed. And so in came the Christie government flying the affront to “sovereignty” flag, failing to understand —or not wanting to acknowledge— that The Bahamas courts had recognised international insolvencies, and if it were not for government’s interference, Chapter 11 would have been the most efficient route for Baha Mar to take. Former prime minister Hubert Ingraham warned then prime minister Christie that to put Baha Mar into bankruptcy in The Bahamas was “fundamentally a bad decision”. So strongly did Mr Ingraham feel on this matter that he wrote two letters trying to dissuade Mr Christie from making such a fatal mistake. “The government,” said Mr Ingraham at the time, “should not have tilted in favour of the construction company (CCA). It made a mistake and now it is stuck with a very bad decision because it is the government that put Baha Mar in liquidation.”

But the PLP government, almost taking the lead away from the courts, went full steam ahead at the side of EXIM bank.

Beijing’s plan seemed clear when it came time for the bank’s receivers to sell off the resort. Sir Sol Kerzner, who was one of those interested in bidding on the property complained — as did others—that the China EXIM bank would not give him the information needed to make a proper bid. It was obvious that the EXIM bank with its contractor CCA had plotted its own course from that day in 2015 when CCA failed to deliver a completed Baha Mar for the opening date that it had itself set.

They refused to let Mr Izmirlian bid on his own development. In a letter to the bank, Mr Izmirlian pointed out that his company had been advised that all offers to purchase the resort had to go through the receivers and that was why the Izmirlian offer would not be considered, yet the Baha Mar purchaser – selected and approved by EXIM – had been “found outside the receivers’ process”.

It is now the door to this company that the Beijing group has approved that the Minnis government has to open gingerly and have all its investigative wits about them.

The selected group is a large and very successful Hong Kong company. It is like an octopus with arms that reach into many ventures. But the one that we suggest our government has to pay special attention to is the long arm that stretches into the entertainment and casino world and has rubbed shoulders with the Triad. National Security Minister Marvin Dames has enough problems with his own home grown gangs without adding to his burdens.

The Bahamas has now been given a second chance to secure its own interests. There will be no more “tilting” in favour of EXIM and CCA, but rather in favour of these islands called The Bahamas.