NASSAU, The Bahamas (26 March 2024) — We note the Tribune headline this morning quoting the Leader of the Opposition’s criticism of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Davis administration over the progress on the Grand Lucayan Resort and the Grand Bahama International Airport.
He is not a serious person and will clearly say anything he believes will lend him a shred of political relevance, despite the historical context of these matters and his role in them.
We remind him that it was his administration that bought the property in a terrible deal and then proceeded to sign an even worse deal to sell-off the Bahamian asset.
Under our administration the Grand Lucayan Resort remains open, has been maintained in good physical condition, employs over 150 Grand Bahamians and has occupancy levels and revenues significantly exceeding last year, let alone in any year under the stewardship of the Cabinet in which he sat.
Grand Bahama has seen staggering growth in airlift and is the fastest growing island for air arrivals in the country. Grand Bahama is also growing faster in tourism arrivals this year than it did last year.
Cruise arrivals are up significantly on the island, with a program to convert those visitors to stopover visitors actively underway.
Grand Bahama will also soon boast some of the largest cruise port developments on the planet, which will attract millions of visitors each year, because of the diligent work of our administration. Indeed, more than $2 billion in real investment has been approved for Grand Bahama.
We have entered into a public-private partnership agreement for the airport which was transparently outlined in detail last year. In Michael Pintard’s excitement to talk down the economy of Grand Bahama he perhaps did not notice that demolition works has already started on the dilapidated terminal of the airport from which he travels every week.
As for the Grand Lucayan, because of the environment we helped bring about, and the value created, it has never been more attractive to investors. There continues to be strong interest and at the appropriate time we will say more.
Where was this deep level of concern for Grand Bahama when his party had five (5) MPs and six (6) cabinet ministers with very little to show and a crippled economy?
The FNM is the same party that called Baha Mar a fake project and then paraded the fraudulent Oban scheme before the Bahamian people.
Pintard, nor his party, has any credibility on these matters.
