Now that an agreement has been signed for the sale of the closed property, Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe said on Thursday that Lehman Brothers, the resortﾒs mortgagee, will be responsible for paying the workers the remainder of their severance payments.
Lehman, as the Bahama Journal reported on Wednesday, signed the agreement with World Investments Holdings Limited, which plans to renovate the property.
When it paid out $5 million in severance payments to displaced workers of the Royal Oasis Resort more than a year ago, the government had promised to seek permission from parliament to pay the remaining $1.2 million to the workers.
But it was a move the government never made, angering some workers, as it chose instead to wait for the resortﾒs owners to pay the severance payments. The government has also said it plans to go after the owners to reimburse the public purse.
Minister Wilchcombe assured that the government had done the necessary due diligence on World Investments Holdings and did not want to make the same mistake it believes the former government made in allowing the Driftwood Group to purchase the hotel.
But the minister pointed out that in such arrangements there are always risks involved.
“Iﾒm not completely assured that everything is going to flow as we want it to,” he said. “So, I donﾒt want to speak overly confident at this time. What I want to say is this: at this point Iﾒm very pleased.
“Iﾒm hoping that over the next several weeks and months that the plans that they do have will take hold and youﾒll begin to see it come to fruition. These things are risky, always risky. We know that they have the wherewithal; we know that theyﾒre heavily funded; we know that they have all that, but we want to make sure that weﾒre putting in Grand Bahama something that can work and that is going to be sustainable.”
He described the signing of the sale agreement as a “very significant move”.
“We believe that in the past weﾒve taken shortcuts that have not inured to the benefit of the people of Grand Bahama or the people of The Bahamas,” Minister Wilchcombe told The Bahama Journal.
Grand Bahama, he said, has a tremendous amount of potential for tourism, but it remains untapped.
“The shortcuts have not paid off well,” Minister Wilchcombe said. “Theyﾒve not created a viable industry that is competitive within The Bahamas, and the Caribbean.”
He believes that if Grand Bahama is able to sustain itself continued focus must be placed on developing the tourism industry.
Itﾒs what the government is doing at this time, the minister assured.
“I believe itﾒs a wonderful move,” he said of the signing, which took place earlier this week.
Meanwhile, many former workers of the property are hopeful that they would get first preference when jobs become available at the resort again. The soon-to-be new owners hope to reopen the hotel within eight months.
They are now looking to Lehman to tell them exactly when they can collect.
By: Candia Dames, The Bahama Journal
