New Democratic Party (NDP) Central Leeward candidate Conroy Huggins says the government is still promising hotels at Mt Wynne and Peter’s Hope, over five years after breaking ground for two hotels there.
Speaking in Layou on Saturday, Huggins noted that the Black Sands Resort, for which a ground-breaking ceremony was held eight years ago, has not become a reality
And, no work has commenced on the state-owned Marriott Hotel at Peter’s Hope, six years after the ground-breaking ceremony.
Huggins is making his first attempt to win the seat, which the Unity Labour Party has been representing for 30 years.
He highlighted the projects “to show you how these are a bunch of jokers and time wasters … want to look at us in Central Leeward, as if we foolish, and we nah ha’ sense.
“Central Leeward, we cannot allow these tricksters to trick us anymore,” he told party supporters at a campaign event at the Layou Waterfront on Saturday.
Huggins, an educator who lost his job under the COVID-19 vaccine mandate in 2021, noted that the ULP administration announced in 2017 that it would make Central Leeward the mecca of tourism on the western coast of St. Vincent.
He pointed out that in 1996, former prime minister under the NDP, Sir James Mithcell, bought lands in Peter’s Hope and Mt Wynne for hotel development.
“That is our vision,” Huggins said, adding that 25 years later, in 2017, the ULP administration said they’re going to bring Black Sands Resorts.
In February 2017, Canadian firm PACE Developments broke ground for what it had said was a US$60 million resort and villas at Mt Wynne-Peter’s Hope.
Joseph Romano of PACE Developments told iWitness News then that the project was “self-financed for now” and his company has about half of the money it needed.
In August 2024, the government pulled the plug on the project, which remains incomplete eight years after the groundbreaking ceremony, and seven years after the first phase was to have been completed.
On Saturday, Huggins noted that Sir Louis Straker, who was MP for Central Leeward at the time, participated in the opening ceremony in 2017.
“They had big groundbreaking ceremony. You know, they always have plenty food and all kind of thing. And they carry on.
“You know, these jokers coming back now after eight years, promise us 40 villas and a hotel with 200 rooms and say between that and some Marriott, ghost Marriott, what should have been in Mount Wynne, they will give us 1,000 jobs,” Huggins said.
“As we speak today, if you go to Peter’s hope, there are 10 white elephants, 10 structures still sitting there after eight years, and these people have the audacity to come and say to us in Central Leeward, alyo so stupid, alyo vote for us again in 2020 and alyo go do it again in 2025. I tell them nothing go so.”
Huggins noted that the government is now saying that they renegotiated with Marriott and Sandals and sold lands in Mt Wynne to Sandals for some $42 million.
“You know, these people are coming to tell us after eight years of a failed Black Sand Resort that they are now going to transfer a Marriott to Black Sands.”
Huggins noted that six years ago, in September 2019, the government had a groundbreaking ceremony for Marriot at Mt Wynne.
“And they say, the Minister of Finance say, ‘We are bringing to the people of Central Leeward the first Marriott ever in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.’
“Central Leeward people, do you have a Marriott in Mt Wynne?” Huggins said.
“Central Leeward people, after six years, any construction with Marriott in Mt Wynne? You know what them jokers come and say now? They renegotiate with Sandals and Sandals go now build Beaches by that side.
“But hear the trick …we ah negotiate now, just weeks before election, and then Sanders will start construction in 2026. Dem think arwe dotish?
“So hear wah happen, when we get into office, when you decide that enough is enough, and you put us in office, we will evaluate all of those arrangements, and then we will decide how we proceed, because I will let you know something here today, our beaches are not going to be privatised under my watch,” Huggins said.
“So them coming to tell us now that they will give us Marriott in Peter’s Hope and give us Sandals in Mt Wynne. We want to tell them, you done have an opportunity already and you’re gone.
“You can’t bring us any broken promises now, after failing us before to come promise us now you going go give us hotel again.”
He said the government has also moved from promising 1,000 jobs to promising 2,000 jobs.
“Central Leeward, we are better than this. And these people have been playing us for fools, and today we, the people of Central Leeward, declare, enough is enough. Enough is enough, and they must go,” he said.