THE TRUE STORY ABOUT THE FPO AIRPORT AND THE HOTEL

Michael Pintard really has a nerve.  He was in the press last week claiming that the Prime Minister Philip Davis had made false promises without regard to the construction of the new airport in Grand Bahama and the refurbishment of the Grand Lucayan Hotel. Mr. Pintard does not have the moral right to talk.  He sat in the Cabinet of the hapless Prime Minister Hubert Minnis and allowed the FNM government to be hoodwinked not once but twice by the Grand Bahama Port Authority and Hutchison Whampoa. First, they refused to rebuild the hotel, even though they got concessions from the government for their container port which mandated that they build a hotel and keep it at least 50 per cent full. They got the FNM government to allow them to take the insurance money and then dump the hotel on the FNM for 64 million dollars, almost ten million more than the hotel was assessed to be valued.  Then astonishingly, they did not get all the property, they forgot to include the golf course and the country club.  It was shockingly inept.  Having gotten away with that, the Port and Hutchison then refused after Hurricane Dorian to fix the airport that they owned and which they were bound to maintain under the Hawksbill Creek Agreement.  They then dumped the airport on the FNM government for 1 dollar, and the FNM bought that hook line, and sinker, without disclosing to the Bahamian public that the government would have a construction tab of 250 million dollars to restore the airport.  Michael Pintard sat in the cabinet put the people of The Bahamas in shock and now he wants to complain about the pace of reconstruction.