The Canadian investors who are buying 36 acres of land at Mt Wynne-Peters Hope for EC$7 million have made the final payment.
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves made the announcement on radio this week, reiterating that the construction and maintenance of the 50 villas there will create “a lot of jobs and wealth” for Vincentians.
The investors, Pace Developments out of Ontario, Canada, had paid down EC$3 million, but have since made the final payments.
Speaking about the job prospects as a result of the investment, Gonsalves said: “At least those are the possibilities and we all know the linkages with tourism.”
Gonsalves acknowledged that persons have spoken about Buccament Bay Resort not being managed properly.
His comments were in apparent response to the opposition New Democratic Party, whose leader, Arnhim Eustace, has described the resort as a “disaster”.
The NDP is also opposing the sale of the lands to foreigners.
Gonsalves said: “But throughout the whole Caribbean, there are some hotels that are not managed properly. Some are even going through liquidation. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t build hotels and you don’t go into tourism.”
He said that whatever is built in St. Vincent and the Grenadines remains in the country for someone else to manage, if the original owners don’t succeed.
Does that mean everyone has now been paid?
There seems to be an effort in cyberspace to maliciously subvert this sale solely on political partisan grounds using a lot a red herrings:
1. These 36 acres sold at an outrageously low price. There is no evidence that there were any local or overseas buyers for these lands for the 25 years they were available for sale. The NDP under Arnhim Eustace was willing to give all of Mt. Wynne/Peter’s Hope away for free if there were sufficient foreign tourist development there.
A claim has been made that these 36 acres have been valued at $60 million, an outrageous assertion made by Internet crazy Peter Binose supported by not a shred of credible evidence.
2. There was no transparency in their sale, a charge that assumes the government had a legal obligation to involve the public in the valuation or sale which is as false in SVG as it is false in most countries around the world where similar sales of public lands occur, including other Caribbean islands, the United States and Great Britain.
3. “The selling off of said lands to foreign buyers without the offering of the same said opportunity to local people is plainly wrong. This statement is itself plainly wrong because local people always had the right to invest in available land-based investment as advertised by InvestSVG which lists hundreds of acres of land for development all over SVG on their web site (http://www.investsvg.com/INVESTMENTSECTORS/Tourism/Opportunities/tabid/96/Default.aspx ). The plain face is that no local investors showed any interest in doing so or could not come up with the millions of dollars necessary to secure a genuine investment.
4. The lack of consultation with local stakeholders of the said lands stinks of cronyism, true arrogance and great abuse of powers. This is also false because consultation was not legally mandated. In fact, the constitution and the laws of SVG give the government the right to sell such lands without consultation because we are a representative democracy (which gives our elected government the right and power to make such decisions on our behalf without consultation), not a participatory democracy like Switzerland where such consultation would have been mandatory in law.
It seems like a lot of NDP fanatics are vex for so that finally, finally we may be getting some genuine foreign tourist development on the mainland.
Unless proven otherwise, I have to agree with you on all points. This governments has made so many mistakes and mismanaged about everything, such as the airport, that it is easy to accuse them of continuing their stupidity. So far, how the sale of these lands is going seems to be the best solution. Just hope that it does not turn out to be another Buccament Bay. Canouan also seems to be a flop. Hope these people can do it right.
Newspaper reports (Searchlight) suggest that the Canouan beach access issue is being amicably resolved by the local people and the developers much to the dismay of people like Peter Binose, Matthew Thomas, and the bosses of the NDP who wanted to make this a life or death political issue.
Let’s hope everything works out on Canouan keeping in mind that access to beaches by traditional paths and roads must never be abandoned not just for locals but for all people, including visitors (those not even residing on the hotel or resort property in question).
But where there never way any traditional beach access via road or path or where a hotel puts in a new road of their own on property they have bought or leased, the same trespass rules as occur on any private property must prevail. At least that is my interpretation of the law.
I am unsure of what the access rights are to the Buccament Bay Resort from the southern road leading to the beach which I have never used (I’ve always entered from the road near the bridge across the Buccament River). Perhaps, some reader will enlighten me about access from the southern entrance which was always the traditional road. Access to everyone should be the rule from this road unless it was built after Sid built his bar and restaurant there many years ago.
David I would like to make comments about what you wrote including once again the insults I must suffer from you without being allowed recourse to render the same unto you.
Why have you once again decided to prolong the nasty spiteful and malicious behaviour that everyone is fed up with.
Why cannot you write your opinions without the jealous hatred rearing it head again.
I suppose if this is not posted I will have to write about it elsewhere again.