Former head of the Joint Consultative Council (JCC) Afra Raymond said he strongly believes that negative publicity is not the real reason why Sandals Resorts pulled out of the Tobago Sandals project.
He speculates that it could have been “What are the ‘Underlying Commercial Arrangements’?
“I don’t believe that the Sandals Brand suffered any negative publicity, least of all from my work. There is no doubt that Sandals is a top-drawer brand in the luxury resort sector, the question my work is directed to - “What are the ‘Underlying Commercial Arrangements’?” Raymond said.
Admitting that he thought yesterday’s media conference was to announce the signing of the Tobago Sandals deal, Raymond said he was glad to have been wrong, “Well I am glad to have been wrong since my original guess was that today’s (yesterday) meeting was going to announce the signing of the Tobago Sandals deal. It is not a good thing, because we still do not really understand what has happened here.”
On November 29, 2018, at the first hearing of Raymond’s Judicial Review of the refusal of the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) to provide a copy of the Tobago Sandals Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which he had requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on February 27 2018, the OPM agreed to provide the MoU and pay Raymond’s costs.
The MoU was signed on October 10, 2017, and initially, the public was told by Rowley and Young that its details could not be published as that would undermine the negotiations.
However, at a subsequent media conference, Young disclosed the document.
According to Raymond, in the MoU, there were many positive features in favour of Sandals.
Raymond explained to the Guardian Media yesterday that the main red flag in the MoU was the comical zig-zagging between ‘there is no secret’ but ‘we can’t breach the confidentiality clause.’
“I even wrote to Sandals to ask for the MoU after they were repeating how there is no secret, but they also didn’t want to share. When the MoU was finally revealed after my lawsuit, the terms were shown to be lawful with the State making all the capital investment; no guarantees or quotas as to jobs, suppliers or services; Government agreeing to promptly provide as many work permits as required; transfer-pricing was being facilitated via this agreement and Sandals was placing no capital at risk. None. It was really Tobago Love,” Raymond said.
Last year, during the 2019 budget presentation, Finance Minister Colm Imbert had identified the Sandals project as a turning point for the Tobago economy with a projected US$80 million per year in revenue (TT$480 million).
The resort was to be built at Buccoo/Golden Grove and owned by the Government and equity partners, but the hotel was to be managed and operated by Sandals Resorts International. The 1000-room hotel was expected to employ some 2000 people.
Asked of its projected revenue, Rainer made it clear that they have never sat down to negotiate so he was not going to release a number, “because it would just cause a debate that is fruitless.”
He, however, noted that they would return, “We love Trinidad and Tobago…it is a destination in a Caribbean country, part of the Caribbean from a tourism perspective will worth it in developing but we have to have the right environment to do so.”
Minority Leader of the Tobago House of Assembly, Watson Duke in thanking Sandals for saving Tobago’s wetlands said that they will welcome them back for re-negotiations in the future but added that they (meaning Tobago) would “want to have a say in future negotiations.” He said the time was not right now and believes that there was no transparency in the process from the start.