The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

MINISTER Wilchcombe announces that the Gaming Board has received the application documents for the potential operator of the Casino at Baha Mar - to paraphrase the Prime Minister “our process for licensing casinos is extremely thorough, requires considerable due diligence and the use of experts from The Nevada Gaming Commission and UK”.

Surely we therefore presume this process if followed will not take a few days but probably at the minimum a month or more?

One has to ask - why the buyer is listing ‘alternative Casino Operators’? There is only one license to be obtained so why a choice of operators?

Trying to think as this Government trends I suspect, to get this deal the Government has perceived the applicant as a “new investor” so all that Sarkis Baha Mar-BMH Holdings received in concessions is in the past. Plus minus $1 billion, will be set aside and the new buyer will be treated as precisely that so out the window goes the pretext that we hear that we cannot exceed what Atlantis received which few other than Government perceive as binding anyway.

So we will give the new buyer possibly $1billion in concessions ... remember, readers, the extremely valuable land on Cable Beach was to be granted to Sarkis - not a dime passed hands.

Can Baha Mar in any form have a feasibility? Too many rooms - absolutely no amenities to serve Family Tourism which is what we receive - the perception of Sarkis is 10+ years old and does not hold water today (ask Atlantis).

Rooms at $250.00 per person per night are excessive - 2,300 of them is a mountain to climb. Is Baha Mar a disaster in the making?

T HUGGINS

Nassau,

November 30, 2016.