Those employed at Buccament Bay Resort when it closed in December 2016 will soon each receive a pay-out of EC$2,000.
The money, to be paid by the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, is from $732,180 raised through an auction of the contents of the resort after its sale, last year, to Sandals Resorts International.
Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves said he had signed a special warrant on Monday for the pay-out.
“It’s not strictly volcano, but it helps; every little bit helps,” he said as he presented an EC$117.9 million supplementary budget in response to last month’s explosive eruption of La Soufriere.
“As the honourable house knows, in the disposition of the property, the items at the former Buccament Bay Resort, a lot of those items were sold by auction. When you take out the fees to the auctioneer, when you take out the salary for the security and other staff that helped in the auction, we raised a total of $732,180 from the sale of those items, and we are going to distribute that money evenly among everyone who was employed at the Buccament resort at the time of its closure.
“That means that each person at the resort will get, likely, a cheque in excess of $2,000 as an ex-gratia payment. The government doesn’t owe them that money, but recognizing their difficulty, each one of them will get the check in excess of $2,000 in recognition of their hard work,” the finance minister said.
This is shut your mouths bribery not compensation, some people were owed multi thousands others next to nothing yet all get the same. They are aware that the refurbished resort when re-opened will be picketed by ex employees and suppliers owed shitloads of money. This is an attempt to pre-empt that and buy off future problems. It really is in many cases a peanut payment, but perhaps just enough to keep some quiet..
I dont know of any other government that would be that caring Way to go svg What you did is above and beyond the standard of care They managed to get compensation from a no win situation
John, who created this “no win” situation? The same person who created the “no win” for Liat?
One truth is that this is such a terrible policy in SVG. Think about why does a business fail…? One guess…
BECAUSE IT HAS MONEY PROBLEMS!
When a business has money problems how is it going to pay the TENS OF THOUSANDS IN SEVERANCE PAY (along with NIS and so many other pays) and other debts and funds owing?
The only entity capable of paying is government because it has an endless stream of money coming in. This Severance Pay policy for the Private Sector is total stupidity and it tells anyone that wants to “setup” in SVG that they should go elsewhere.
THAT IS WHY WE SEE THIS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN! Not to mention that EVEN GOVERNMENT OFTEN REFUSES TO PAY ITS DEBTS!!!
What percentage of the outstanding amount owing on average to each worker does this compensation represent?? Lack of due deligence by government of the foreign is responsible for the loss. Just as in the case of clico and bico where Vincentians lost tens of millions. The ULP is good in succeeding at failure because of a backward electorate and an inept opposition.