Government Can’t Get Its Freeport Story Straight

Dionisio D’Aguilar, the Minister of Tourism, is the motor mouth of the FNM Cabinet.  He has something to say on everything.  The problem is that he cannot seem to get his story straight from what’s goanna happen up in Freeport with the Government’s decision to purchase the Grand Lucayan Resort.  First he said that they were going to buy the hotel for 65 million dolalrs then sell it, even at loss. They intended to spend no money in renovations.  Then that changed the next week when he said that the Memories part of the property they would seeking to renovate that.  Of course, part of the whole in this business of construction is the whole.   It is also a hole down which money is poured.  The problem with all this talk is that the poor people of Grand Bahama see no immediate end in sight for work and opportunities for work.  What is needed is cash on the ground, not flights of fancy that the Government will be able to flip the hotel even at a loss within three to six months.  Oh yes, that has now changed to possibly a year so said the mercurial Chair of the Hotel Corporation and Chair of the special purpose vehicle that was created to buy the hotel Michael Scott.  Mr. Scott who said the vilest things about the now Prime Minister Hubert Minnis when he was opposing Dr. Minnis for leadership of the FNM, is now as tame as a pussy cat working fro Dr. Minnis.  He has discovered so quickly what the PLP knew that the most difficult part of the equation is Hutchinson Whampoa, the hotel’s owners .  They have no interest in anything to do with it. They do not want it. They do not want to sell it.  They seemed to have taken the insurance money and run with it and ow they want 65 million of Bahamian taxpayer’s dollars to give it. The FNM Government is committed to giving it to them. Well it’s the people’s time.