The company announced plans in May to double its investment in the mega multi-hotel resort which was first estimated to cost $1.2 billion and now feels the government should double the concessions, sources have told the Guardian.
“Their plans now are to expand the project, so they are having discussions with regard to consequential changes to the concessions,” said Dr Balton Bethel, revealing that the government has been thrashing out the issue for several months. “It’s all in the same course that we have done with other developers, like Kerzner (International), for instance.”
Mr Bethel, who is the government’s chief negotiator on the Baha Mar project, would not say if the company had, in fact, asked for the concessions already offered to be doubled.
But what he did say is that, “the determining factor is the level of the development. The level of the development attracts proportionate concessions.”
In May, during the 2005/06 budget debate, Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe outlined terms of the original Heads of Agreement the government signed with Baha Mar, including government concessions.
Mr Wilchcombe said, at the time, that the company would be exempted from casino taxes for 21 years and would also receive an eight-year stamp tax exemption on construction materials and joint marketing contributions.
The exemptions were said be worth around 20 per cent of the cost of the project.
“I’m amazed that the government would be in consultation with the Baha Mar group about giving them extra concessions when I do not see what has been produced on the ground to warrant it,” Free National Movement Deputy Leader Brent Symonette told the Guardian yesterday.
“And you’ve got to compare it to when [Sol] Kerzner did [Atlantis] Phase 1. He came in there and you physically saw it on the ground. You saw concrete being poured. You saw men working two and three shifts. I don’t see that out there [at Cable Beach].
The Opposition has charged that since the government signed the original Heads of Agreement with Baha Mar in April 2005, the deal was a “give away.”
The FNM has been particularly critical of Baha Mar receiving large parcels of Crown Land.
Mr Symonette questioned the need to re-negotiate “generous provisions” with Baha Mar, charging the company had “yet to produce”.
“The original contract called for them to build a new roadway in conjunction with the government, to relocate the prime minister’s office and the two banks and do substantial other work. And I’m
unaware that any of it has been completed to date,” he said.
Asked about the ongoing negotiations for added concessions yesterday, Baha Mar Vice President of Administration and External Affairs Robert Sands said: “We have no comment on that matter οΎ– absolutely no comment.”
The Baha Mar Development Company Ltd. says its resort, when completed, will be the largest single-phase development in the history of the Caribbean. The company has entered a joint venture with Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. and Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide.
The 3,500-room resort is to span an area of 1000 acres and include a Las Vegas-style hotel, world class spas, an 18-hole Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course and many other additional recreation facilities and amenities.
By: RAYMOND KONGWA, The Nassau Guardian
