The government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines is yet to sign a deal with an investor in the Buccament Bay Resort, one year after it was closed.
“We had been in negotiations with an investor and we had hoped that that investor would have started rehabilitative works on the site before the year ended. That has not happened due to some hiccups in the negotiations regarding, essentially, the management arrangements of the facility,” Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Camillo Gonsalves told iWitness News on Thursday, one year to the day that the resort closed.
“But we are still very confident that we will overcome those little negotiating hurdles and that rehabilitative work will begin early in the New Year,” Gonsalves said.
After weeks of industrial action over the non-payment of workers, the resort was forced to close its doors after the state-owned power company disconnected its electricity connection over non-payment of bills.
In late June, Dave Ames, chair of Harlequin Properties, the resort’s owners, fled St. Vincent as prosecutors moved in on him on theft and tax evasion charges.
His lawyer has since said that illness prevent Ames from returning to St. Vincent from his birth country, the United Kingdom, where he is being prosecuted on fraud charges.
Gonsalves told iWitness News that he was not at liberty to say yet who the investor in the resort is, “because we haven’t concluded the negotiation.
“When I conclude the negotiation, I’d be happy to say but we are in the midst of negotiations. We thought we had a deal, we don’t quite have a deal so we are still at the negotiating table. I don’t want to say anything that might jeopardise those negotiations,” he told iWitness News.
In the meantime, scores of former employees at the resort and other service providers are yet to be paid wages and other monies owed to them.
The government has noted that a new owner would not be obligated to pay outstanding wages owned when the resort was under different ownership.
How can this be possible when the resort is still in bankruptcy proceedings?
A new owner would have to negotiate with the hundreds of British investors owed money by Ames who is still in court with these investors in a case that would not be heard until January 9, 2019, yes 2019, in England.
How can the government sell a resort it does not own?
These words from Gonsalves sound familiar to those of Glen Beache on the negotiations of airlines, because we havent concluded the negotiation. I dont want to say anything that might jeopardise those negotiations,
It would be a shame if the government DO NOT NEGOTIATE A DEAL THAT WILL SEE THE EMPLOYEES GET THEIR HARD EARNED WAGES. This would signify that this government is NOT FOR THE PEOPLE AND DO NOT HAVE THE PEOPLE AT HEART.
It was this government that took KFC to the workers encouraged the strike action that force the hotel to close. Now they turn their backs on the workers? WHAT A DISGRACE.
1. The government has no power to negotiate a deal in this matter.
2. The government did not force the hotel to close because of the workers but because they wouldnt pay Vinlec the millions owed them.
3. If the government tried to bail out the employees of all the hundreds of small businesses in SVG that have failed over the years, we would be in far worse economic shape than we are.
1 These workers getting paid would be an immediate stimulus to the economy.
2 Under bankruptcy laws the workers gets paid first.
3 Certainly this will be a blue print for future investors if the workers are not paid.
4 This does not happen in any other country.
Tony, you are dead wrong. Under bankruptcy laws in most countries, the workers get paid last, at least if there is any money left which is usually not the case. Workers are always at the end of a long list of creditors. What is happening at Buccament happens in every other country in the world.
https://home.kpmg.com/content/dam/kpmg/bb/pdf/2017/12/Creditor-Summary-Presentation.pdf
Info from the source, enough said, make your own conclusions.