The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

INDEPENDENT MP Dr Andre Rollins yesterday criticised the Christie administration for its “very bad” handling of the Baha Mar situation as he blasted the government for failing to ensure there was a contingency plan in place to handle the resort’s ongoing deadlock.

He further hit out at Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson’s lead role in two negotiation meetings about Baha Mar in talks in China. He said given the fact that she once served as the attorney to Baha Mar CEO Sarkis Izmirlian, her role was unacceptable.

The former Progressive Liberal Party MP said when the party took office in 2012, it should have passed bankruptcy legislation in the House of Assembly just as it hastily moved the gaming legislation as it was aware that the $3.5bn resort was at the time set to reach completion in December 2014.

Baha Mar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a US court on June 29. However, this process has not been recognised by this country’s Supreme Court. In response, the government has filed a winding up petition against the resort to have a local provisional liquidator appointed.

In the absence of bankruptcy legislation in this country, Dr Rollins said he was of the view that the government has allowed the mega resort to be set up for purchase at a “fire sale price” because Bahamian law only allows for wind-ups.

His comments came as a guest on 96.9 FM’s radio show Let’s Talk Live with host Carlton Smith.

Dr Rollins said: “In 2012, the government had an opportunity realising that this project was due to open in December of 2014 there was ample opportunity to put together legislation that was passed quickly and decisively as it did for the web shops. They could have done the same thing for bankruptcy legislation that would allow us to conduct these kinds of court matters.

“This kind of litigation, within our own jurisdiction (will prevent) people being able to accuse us of willingly doing away with our sovereignty without having to resort to foreign jurisdictions to hear a matter of this magnitude. I think that taking into account the fact that we only have legislation that allows for winding up or in effect a dissolution or breaking up of this company is not consistent with the desired outcome.”

He added: “The desired outcome is for this project in its current fashion as it is currently constituted to open up. Not to break it up and sell its constituent parts to whomever it is that wants to come and get it at the lowest cost possible. That is what in effect our legislation provides for and that is to sell the constituents of Baha Mar at a fire sale price to people in hopes of getting it to a point where it can operate.”

Dr Rollins further insisted that Baha Mar CEO Sarkis Izmirlian should not be faulted for wanting to be treated fairly in this situation after having invested heavily for the success of the project.

However, he said, what had transpired over the last few weeks does not make it acceptable for the public disrespect coming from all directions.

“What I believe has created this mess that we are in now is that negotiations from the inception of this project did not put proper boundaries between the developer and the government. So much so that the government has the moral authority to be able to speak to the developer privately in a language that he could understand because the developer is seeing the counter party as a group of persons devoid of integrity in terms of people on the inside trying to secure benefits for themselves.

“So they felt when things fell apart that they could speak to the government in any way. (However) I am not condoning where we have an environment where developers can get into public spats with the government it’s not a good look,” Dr Rollins said.