Judy Kan­hai

judy.kan­hai@cnc3.co.tt

The 750-room ho­tel by San­dals Re­sorts on the ul­tra-ex­clu­sive Buc­coo Es­tate, No Man’s Land, in To­ba­go can on­ly be a re­al­i­ty if there is a sig­nif­i­cant up­grade of the Arthur NR Robin­son Air­port, smoother, friend­lier im­mi­gra­tion process and lit­ter-free en­vi­ron­ment.

These are what deputy chair­man of San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al Adam Stew­art de­scribed as the “tough-love part of the con­ver­sa­tion” in ham­mer­ing out the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar deal which has the po­ten­tial of reignit­ing the tourism in­dus­try on the is­land.

Speak­ing to lo­cal me­dia in Bar­ba­dos at the week­end, Stew­art says the MOU signed be­tween San­dals and the Gov­ern­ment was a non-bind­ing agree­ment that de­tails the type of em­ploy­ment, the scale of the To­ba­go re­sort, the sup­ply man­age­ment chain and the com­mit­ment for San­dals to pur­chase items lo­cal­ly. He said there are “no se­crets” in the busi­ness arrange­ment, re­ject­ing claims made by Op­po­si­tion MP Roodal Mooni­lal.

He said if the San­dals deal is to go for­ward, the Gov­ern­ment must meet cer­tain cri­te­ria and that in­cludes up­grad­ing the To­ba­go air­port. Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley has in the past spo­ken about an up­grade of the To­ba­go air­port but did not link it to the San­dals project.

“This is the tough-love part of the con­ver­sa­tion where we’re say­ing the im­mi­gra­tion needs to be trained in hos­pi­tal­i­ty and the air­port needs to be prop­er­ly built for peo­ple to come through, when you are bring­ing hun­dreds of peo­ple.”

“If you go to the Turks & Caicos, which I just came from three days ago, peo­ple are wait­ing an hour and forty-five min­utes af­ter com­ing off a flight to clear Cus­toms & Im­mi­gra­tion. That is not ac­cept­able.”

In ad­di­tion to the air­port up­grade, San­dals says the Gov­ern­ment must en­sure that when tourists vis­it the is­land and they go jog­ging on the streets, and if there was a fete the night be­fore, there should not be, for in­stance, chick­en bone on the ground.

On the is­sue of tax con­ces­sions, Stew­art says it was pre­ma­ture to dis­cuss that at this stage since it is yet to be de­cid­ed on who will own and man­age the re­sort in To­ba­go.

“If the Gov­ern­ment says ‘We want to own half of it and we want Massy, Guardian, Re­pub­lic Bank—all of the big boys to own the oth­er half,’ then we can have a con­ver­sa­tion about what type of con­ces­sions,” he said.

While he says that San­dals has nev­er de­mand­ed any­thing from any Gov­ern­ment, his mes­sage to the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion was: “If you want ex­tra-or­di­nary re­sults like US$85m a year of eco­nom­ic im­pact, yes typ­i­cal­ly, the Gov­ern­ment has to be pre­pared to sta­bilise our tax pack­age and to make sure if there’s a change in gov­ern­ment, that they do not de­stroy our busi­ness mod­el where in three years we are out of busi­ness and no­body wins.”

Ad­mit­ting there have been is­sues be­tween San­dals and An­tigua gov­ern­ment over tax con­ces­sions, Stew­art says “Peo­ple say we de­mand, it’s not peo­ple, it’s the Prime Min­is­ter of An­tigua and we don’t agree with his ac­tions. So the no­tion that we don’t pay tax­es is pre­pos­ter­ous and lu­di­crous. I am hap­py to send you the tax­es we pay in An­tigua.”

He said San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al will re­sume ne­go­ti­a­tions with the T&T Gov­ern­ment with­in 60 days. If all goes as planned, Stew­art says the re­sort will break ground in To­ba­go with­in the first quar­ter of 2019 and con­struc­tion is ex­pect­ed take 22-28 months to be com­plet­ed.

“This is one in­vest­ment that will take To­ba­go back up to 100,000 vis­i­tors. It’s go­ing to hap­pen with blood, sweat and tears,” he said.