The Tribune

TODAY The Tribune says without apology that Hubert Alexander Ingraham should be the man at the head of our government in this, its hour of urgent need.

No one believed Mr Ingraham when he said he had retired — and intended to maintain that state. There are those who even now wish that a bolt of lighting would catapult him from his fishing expeditions back into government.

However, Mr Ingraham never lost interest in the affairs of his country. Always, concerned about the Baha Mar tragedy, he twice offered Prime Minister Christie sound advice on how to handle the resort’s collapse. Obviously, Mr Christie chose to ignore that advice and now finds himself — and our country — at the mercy of the Beijing government.

We won’t go into the details of the early days — again under a Christie administration — when the bottom fell out of developer Zarkis Izmirlian’s agreement with Las Vegas resorts, and he found that the only money to be borrowed on the market to create Baha Mar was that of China. In good faith, he entered into an agreement with the Export-Import Bank of China. One condition of the loan was that CCA, another Chinese company controlled by Beijing, was to be the contractor. In the end the Christie government concluded the heads of agreement, then lost the 2007 election leaving it to the Ingraham government to finalise.

On November 18, 2010, Prime Minister Ingraham as he then was, speaking in the House of Assembly on the resolution of the Baha Mar project, was questioned on a foreign state owning Crown land should anything go wrong:

“It is the view of my government,” Mr Ingraham replied at the time, “that it is an untenable position to permit any foreign State to own land in The Bahamas. Under the law, any financial institution providing funding for a development in The Bahamas has a number of alternatives to protect their interest should that project fail. One of these protections is foreclosure. As I said at my press conference on Sunday past, should this project not succeed, and I have no reason to believe that it will not, and should I be in the position that I now hold, my government would not agree to foreclosure on these properties (previously Crown Land) to any foreign State or any entity which is owned by a foreign State.”

Early last year, we asked Mr Christie in this column what his position would be should the situation arise duriing his tenure. We did not get an answer, nor did we expect one.

We have never been content with such a contract with Beijing. There was no problem having a contract with a private Chinese businessman, but with a state, particularly as the CEXIM was not a bank as we in the West know banks, there was a major problem. As Judge Kevin Carey of the US Bankruptcy Court, where Mr Izmirlian filed for chapter 11 in bankruptcy, observed:

“CEXIM Bank, as the debtors’ largest creditor, is a Chinese POLICY bank that provides financing to support the investment of Chinese capital and employment of Chinese labour forces throughout the world, not just the Bahamas…”

We already knew this and so when CCA gave the developer dates for opening, encouraging him to employ staff and advertise for visitors for opening day, we were not surprised when several times CCA failed to deliver, forcing the developer to seek Chapter 11.

And why were we not surprised? One swirl of the revolving globe in our office gave us the answer. Here in Nassau at the tip of Florida’s big toe is CEXIM’s large land holding on which Baha Mar sits; in Freeport the Hong Kong owned Hutchinson Whampoa, described as having resources “several times larger than the Bahamas government” - has vast holdings, the largest being the Freeport harbour and airport. At the other end of the Panama Canal CCA opened its offices, where Deputy Prime Minister Brave Davis is yet to explain how he could have attended for the ribbon cutting ceremony and praised CCA for its superior work in the Bahamas and the number of jobs it had created here, knowing that Baha Mar was closed and 2,000 Bahamians were out of work. Bahamians were not impressed. Mr Davis is yet to explain himself.

CEXIM, as a policy bank is now financially backing investments up and down the Caribbean. The great United States is being enclosed and surrounded in its own basin of influence by China. No wonder on July 14 the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs held a meeting to discuss building stronger ties with the Caribbean. From WikiLeaks in 2011 we know of America’s growing concern that Baha Mar would “leave the Bahamas indebted to Chinese interests for years to come.” However, it is now time for the US, for its own security to be more than concerned about the Caribbean. We only have to be aware of the tensions now being experienced in the South China Seas over China’s land grab there to consider what could happen here.

In an interview with Candia Dames yesterday, Mr Ingraham expressed disappointment in government’s decision to put Baha Mar into liquidation. “I think it was a bad, and a wrong decision,” he said, “and the consequence of that is being felt up to now because all the people lost their jobs, people have not been paid, and we have serious reputational damage in terms of having a matter dealt with in a court in Delaware that was against the sovereign interest of The Bahamas.” (See story in today’s Tribune).

“So the Government should not have tilted in favour of the construction company. 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. The people who are owed money by Baha Mar are not likely to be paid by the Chinese authorities, because the company is in liquidation,” said Mr Ingraham.

“They are also going to be making all kinds of demands on the Bahamas Government as to what kind of foreign labour content they are going to have. And so we have suffered tremendous losses as a result of the Government’s decision.”

Mr Ingraham said he wrote Mr Christie two notes advising him not to take the path he was taking. “I felt very strongly about it as a Bahamian and someone who had been involved in politics in the Bahamas. I didn’t want to see that happen because I knew once you put that company in liquidation… you see what happened.”

Mr Izmirlian’s offer to pay the necessary funding to complete the project, avoid liquidation and repay CEXIM bank in full, was ignored.

Obviously, CEXIM, being a policy bank for Beijing, would prefer holding the land for China than being paid in full for the debt.

Mr Izmirlian’s latest move to push for the property to be put into full liquidation is once again another attempt by this man to save this resort from an incompetent Government that has sat on the sidelines as Bahamian creditors have suffered for over a year.

If the Christie government could make such a blunder in full view of the Leader of the Opposition, we are satisfied that Dr Hubert Minnis as FNM leader would be out of his depth to correct it. We suggest that the FNM, going into convention today, return with a stronger leader to face the major problems that this country now faces. In our opinion, Dr Minnis is not the man for the leader’s position.