Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald yesterday discredited all comments made by Free National Movement (FNM) Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis in regards to the beleaguered multi-billion dollar Baha Mar Resort.
In a recent statement, Dr. Minnis suggested that the government’s recent announcements about Baha Mar’s projected April 21st opening is only but a “charade” leading up to this year’s general election.
Dr. Minnis further charged that if the FNM assumes government, it would conduct a “real sale of Baha Mar to a qualified and respectable purchaser who believes in Bahamians.”
“When Bahamians judge whether or not Minnis is telling the truth, on Baha Mar or anything else — they need look no further than the letter his own colleagues wrote about him less than a year ago, in which they said he repeatedly proved himself not to be a man of his word. ‘Time after time, we have proven our leader would…knowingly and intentionally distort the facts’, Mr. Fitzgerald said.
“That’s what the people closest to him say. And we can see why. His latest lies about Baha Mar are disgraceful,” he added.
Minister Fitzgerald added that Dr. Minnis is denying Baha Mar’s success, and that the government’s intervention contributed significantly to that success.
“Even as hundreds of Bahamians are being trained and hired, he is still denying that Baha Mar is now in safe hands of a world-class operator that is investing hundreds of millions in its success. Minnis is not equipped to understand the complexity of a development this size; he’s shown us over and over he would have blindly followed private instead of public interests — he continues to mimic the lines of the original developer, who filed for bankruptcy in a US court, where Bahamian employees and contractors would have received no special consideration and would still be waiting in a long line,” Mr. Fitzgerald said.
“The government did not allow that to happen, instead bringing the proceedings back to The Bahamas, making sure contractors and employees were paid what they were owed, and making sure that an owner with success running high-end properties in the Caribbean and around the world was secured,” he added.
The education minister added that the FNM leader is trying to use “bluster and deception to cover up just how little he knows or understands.”
“His broken party is evidence of what happens when he’s put in charge,” he said.
“He should congratulate the many Bahamians who are receiving training and new opportunities. Baha Mar has been rescued from bankruptcy and will be a success for the whole country to be proud of,” Mr. Fitzgerald said.
