The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

ON the anniversary of the Baha Mar bankruptcy filing, Free National Movement Leader Dr Hubert Minnis declared that “there is no opening in sight” for the resort as he criticised the government for offering “empty rhetoric and broken promises”.

“One year since Baha Mar went into bankruptcy this government continues to offer up empty rhetoric and broken promises and engage in secret deals, yet nothing has gotten Baha Mar open,” Dr Minnis said in a statement yesterday.

“They promised us that Baha Mar was going to lift our tourism industry. From the outset they promised us 5,000 jobs yet that has not happened. Weekly, we find out through the newspapers about secret deals that the PLP government has made with the Chinese that will rob Bahamian contractors of money they are due.”

“This entire project remains on hold and there is no opening in sight. On top of the 5,000 jobs, 2,000 Bahamians were laid off when construction stopped on the $3.5 billion project.”

He said Bahamian contractors are waiting to be paid the millions they are owed, but Prime Minister Perry Christie has given them little hope that they will ever get their money.

“Recently, an engineering inspector even questioned the structural integrity of Baha Mar since it has been sitting empty for a year with no upkeep. Could there be more roadblocks to opening up the resort than is even known now? There are a lot of questions to be answered by the PLP government that they refuse to divulge any information on.”

“The Bahamian people can expect the same type of campaign rhetoric that they heard last time offering up lots of hope yet only delivering despair and never creating the jobs they promised,” he said. “The FNM stands for open transparency and will work every day for the Bahamian people and the jobs they so desperately need and deserve.”

Baha Mar filed for bankruptcy in a US court on June 29, 2015. The cases for the resort’s Bahamian based companies were later thrown out and the resort was placed in receivership last October.