With the infighting over and a new executive team in place, Chairman Ian Fair is convinced the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) now needs to get back to the business of Freeport.
Excited about the city’s prospects, the new chairman said, what Freeport needs now is stability.
“We’ve gone through this hiatus of a major global recession, a lot of fighting between the shareholders,” he said.
“… It needs a period of demonstrating to people that we’re back in business, we’re back doing business, we’re not fighting anymore, we’ve got all of the past problems behind us and we just need to get back to running the business of Freeport.”
Fair came to The Bahamas in 1969 at the age of 21 on a two-year contract with the Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Company and never left, he revealed yesterday in an interview with The Freeport News.
Within six months of his arrival, Fair met a Long Island native and they were wed one year later.
The couple has been married 41 years and have three daughters.
“I am a Bahamian citizen and I’m very happy to be here. It’s home,” he said.
The new GBPA executive is also chairman of The Bahamas Maritime Authority and has a wealth of international and maritime exposure.
Fair’s appointment comes amid much uncertainty regarding the GBPA and the survival of the island.
The GBPA has had its share of challenges over the last five years from infighting among the shareholders to the removal of its chairman, his reinstatement and eventually the non-renewal of his work permit.
The GBPA was led by Honorary Chairman Sir Jack Hayward and his partner, the late Edward St. George, the former chairman.
Following St. George’s death in December 2004, Julian Francis was appointed co-chairman and chief executive officer, but resigned a year later.
Then in June 2006, Sir Jack and Lady Henrietta St. George appointed Austrian-born native Hannes Babak as chairman.
One year later, both families were embroiled in a legal dispute over shares in the GBPA Group of Companies. Sir Jack had claimed 75 percent ownership while the St. Georges maintained they owned 50 percent.
The fight lasted for more than two years.
Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham called it unacceptable and noted that the “dysfunctional Port Authority,” at the time, was proving to be challenging for the government.
He also noted then that an effective, whole and focused GBPA is critically essential for Freeport’s growth and development.
The prime minister had also pointed out that there was no way to measure how the infighting had directly impacted investor confidence.
The Supreme Court eventually ruled that the St. Georges own 50 percent of the company.
The leadership at the GBPA was then challenged when the prime minister revealed that the government was not renewing Babak’s work permit when it expired at the end of December 2009.
Since then the chair had been vacant.
The announcement last week of the appointment of Fair and Sarah St. George, daughter of the late chairman, is the beginning of a new chapter at the GBPA.
Fair’s new role will be to guide the strategic direction for the organization and focus on maximizing growth opportunities for Freeport and Grand Bahama.
“I think Freeport has huge potential.
It is the industrial/commercial center of The Bahamas,” Fair said.
“The original conceived structure of Freeport has worked quite well and it’s gone through some major bumps in the road and we just need to get back to a period of stability.”
With an unemployment rate of approximately 21 percent at last report, Fair believes the worst is now behind.
“We can’t control the economy, but you can work with it,” he said. “I think what we can say is to those people we’re in partnership already here, such as Hutchison Whampoah, is that we want to get back to a business-like approach to our relationship — irrespective of there being some feuding and some fighting in the past. That’s all behind us.
“Everybody is on the same page, the Board of Directors has totally supported this concept, hence my appointment.”
That means, he explained, reaching out to those people who the GBPA is already in partnership with to see what more business they can do together now that there is no more fighting.
With a number of projects the GBPA recently announced that are in the pipeline, Fair said it is his desire to see something come to fruition this year.
“Once people realize that there is a level playing field going on in Freeport again and there’s no longer a whole bunch of fighting going on between directors, shareholders, governments — we’re all on the same page, we all want success to occur,” Fair said.
By LEDEDRA MARCHE
The Freeport News
