The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Deputy Chief Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

THE release of the sealed Supreme Court Baha Mar documents is “most definitely” expected before the opening of the $3.5bn West Bay Street mega resort, Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson said yesterday.

While pinning the government down to a time frame of the document’s release, Mrs Maynard-Gibson said she is currently in the process of being advised by attorneys in her office on how best to implement Prime Minister Perry Christie’s directive to have the Baha Mar heads of agreement released for public consumption, while protecting proprietary information.

She repeated the government’s position that the heads of agreement had nothing “unusual” contained in it, adding that providing incentives to investors in the country was not an unfamiliar practice.

Asked whether it was possible to have this done before the shuttered resort opened its doors, the attorney general said: “Oh yes. You heard the prime minister’s statement. It’s a mandate.”

She continued: “Yes, most definitely. As I indicated you have heard the prime minister speak, you have heard Minister (of Education Jerome) Fitzgerald speak and myself speak and that is that there is nothing unusual in the document at all in terms of the content of heads of agreements.

“There is nothing unusual about the idea of incentivising investment in our country and we are certainly very happy to see the promise of Baha Mar coming to its full fruition.

“You would have seen that thousands of people are already applying for jobs. There are contractors already on the site and there are Bahamian contractors who had no hope of being paid, have been paid and are very delighted about all of the circumstances that have been negotiated by the government under the prime minister’s direction,” she said.

“It’s important to note that there is proprietary information that has to be protected as well as the public’s interest in having all of that information and we believe that we will be able to, in short order, have both objectives (the court’s judgment and the prime minister’s directive) accomplished,” Mrs Maynard-Gibson said.

After facing fiery backlash for months over confirmation that the new deal to open Baha Mar was sealed, Mr Christie told reporters last week that Mrs Maynard-Gibson was directed to have the records made public at the “earliest opportunity”.

The prime minister added that his administration had no difficulty in accounting for what it negotiated to facilitate the opening of the shuttered $3.5bn West Bay Street mega resort.

Once the documents are placed in the public domain, Mr Christie said Bahamians will see that what is contained in them will reveal the “most brilliant” set of negotiations in the country’s history.

Despite what critics have said about the deal, Mr Christie reiterated that his administration did not ask the Supreme Court to seal the Baha Mar deal. He repeated earlier comments that this was a “commercial decision” made by the lawyers representing the Export-Import Bank of China (CEXIM).

Last month, Mr Christie announced the official sale of Baha Mar to CTF BM Holdings, a subsidiary of the Hong Kong conglomerate, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises Ltd.

Apart from failing to reveal the cost at which the shuttered resort was sold, Mr Christie at the time spoke minimally of the details surrounding this development.