The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Deputy Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

OFFICIALS are still eyeing a second quarter 2019 sale of the Grand Lucayan resort with “April to June” pegged as a timeline for the sale, chairman of Lucayan Renewal Holdings Michael Scott told The Tribune yesterday.

The Hotel Corporation chairman gave the update yesterday while declining to comment about the payment of voluntary separation packages to managerial and line staff of the hotel.

However, Finance Minister K Peter Turnquest told reporters yesterday the government ensured the packages were funded, adding they should be settled “shortly”.

In an interview with The Tribune, Mr Scott again defended the government’s decision to have the property renovated at a maximum cost of $3.5m before it is sold.

He said “limited” work was being done to make the resort “operable”.

Initially, Mr Scott said it was estimated the renovations would cost the government a maximum of $20m, but this was scaled back because there was no justification for expending large sums of money that were unlikely to be recouped in the sale.

However, just last September Mr Turnquest told the House of Assembly the government could spend nearly $39m on the undertaking.

“It’s very simple,” Mr Scott said yesterday. “We are doing limited renovations in order to make the hotel operable. That’s all we are doing.

“Initially there were suggestions that we might spend as much as $15m (to) $20m that was pared down to I think the figure is $3.5m or I think $3m because it could not be justified.

“When you sell the hotel, no one is going to reimburse you for all of that extra money that you spent on renovations. So all we are doing is carrying out necessary repairs like repairing A/C coolers, like repairing the roof to the Lighthouse Pointe which is the one part of the hotel which is operable at the moment – which is taking paying customers, clients, guests and also some limited cosmetic work and things like repairing the coolers (and) the condensers in the A/C system and also doing some repairs to the roof of the convention centre which is a money earner because it’s the only facility of its size in Grand Bahama to accommodate large scale functions, that sort of thing.”

Asked about a revamped timeline for the sale, Mr Scott said: “April to June of this year.”

The government initially set a six-month timeline from September 2018 to offload the hotel.

However, that timeline was changed and last November Tourism Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar said it was expected that the resort would be sold by the second quarter of 2019.