PM: Sandals contract, Tobago consultations soon

The Sandals project will go ahead unless it is stopped by a court order, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley told Tobagonians who gathered for ‘Conversations with the Prime Minister’ held at the Anne Mitchell Gift Auditorium of the Scarborough Library Facility last Thursday evening.

“Unless the court rules that the Government cannot proceed with Sandals, and the court cannot make such a ruling, the Sandals project will go ahead,” said Rowley.

The PM said he has spent the day with Gebhard Rainer Chief Executive Officer of Sandals along with consultant and golfer, Greg Norman, who he said will be designing a third golf course in Tobago as part of the Sandals project.

“We at the level of the Government, particularly myself as Prime Minister, would have spoken to the country openly about this particular project.

“…we thought that Tobago can benefit from having in Tobago a project like Sandals because it would have a lot of positive effects on the Tobago economy and on Tobagonians, especially Tobago entrepreneurship and Tobago’s contribution to the economy, bringing Tobago as the last of the developing island in the Easter Caribbean in tourism,” he said.

Rowley said the country has been told on numerous occasions that the Government would be proceeding with Sandals.

“We were talking with Sandals, we are laying the ground work, we are doing what needs to be done. We are going to have public consultations in Tobago at some time and we would negotiate the arrangements with Sandals as we go forward.

“Those negotiations, meaning the preparation of a contract document would take place in the next coming weeks but to keep us together as the formulating of a project, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Sandals that they will partner with us in this,” he said, adding that the MOU was not a binding document.

The PM contended a Sandals resort in Tobago has nothing to do with any preferential treatment for himself in his personal capacity, his political party, or the Sandals family.

“It has to do with choosing the right thing… there are five Sandals projects in St Lucia and all I am asking Tobago is, if it’s so bad, take the St Lucians to the mad house.

“You know who else is there with them… the Bahamians, the Antiguans, the Jamaicans, the Grenadians, they all are happily signing on to a Caribbean label, which is a world brand, world success story.

“It is in that context we say, if we use Tobago attributes, which in many instances are better than other who were there already, at the appropriate time in the very near future, we would present to you the concept of the story and you would see that the Tobago Sandals is likely to be the best one in the Caribbean,” he said.

Rowley said there was limited time to get this done.

“So therefore, I am not engaging in the talk, I am engaging in the do. Let’s get it done, we’ve talked about it long enough. Apart from Sandals we are going to need more hotel rooms in Tobago. Going to Tobago has to become an experience.

“One of the things that we can do is offer Tobago as a golfing experience. If we have three well-maintained golf courses in Tobago we can market Tobago as a golfing destination. What we are doing now is doing what we always said we were going to do…” he said.