Bahamas government blasted over stalled China mega resort

Tuesday 19th of April 2016

The Bahamas government has taken heat from its main opposition for its handling of the stalled Chinese-funded $3.5 billion hotel and casino resort, local media reports.

Bahama’s Free National Movement (FNM) party reportedly remarked that Prime Minister Perry Christie party has been “disastrously negligent”, “delusional” and asleep at the wheel placing Baha Mar resort into liquidation.

Development of the resort came to a halt following a heated legal battle in last year in June between the resort’s original developer Sarkis Izmirlian and the project’s owner, state-owned Export-Import Bank of China.

The resort is estimated to already be 97 percent complete, according to the Global Construction Review.

The FNM’s call out to Christie’s Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) came from shadow minister for labour and social development, the MP Loretta Butler-Turner, who called for a concerted diplomatic outreach to the Chinese government to get the scheme unblocked.

“The Bahamas cannot afford to allow the largest single hotel development in its history to sit idle and unopened for much longer,” said Butler-Turner in statement yesterday to Bahamian newspaper The Tribune.

“The government dramatically failed to monitor the construction of Baha Mar. During the initial development of Atlantis on Paradise Island, the then FNM administration provided vigorous oversight of developments at that resort,” she continued.

The shadow minister said resolution of the matter will require intense and unrelenting diplomatic efforts with the government of the People’s Republic of China, and the Christie administration should consider the appointment of a highly respected senior official to help negotiate with various parties in China to resolve the standstill at Baha Mar.

Bricks & Mortar Delay Construction Development Stall