Calls for public consultation on Sandals

Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Minority Councillor, Dr Faith BYisrael is calling for the start of the consultation process for the development of Sandals in Tobago.

Speaking during the Minority’s weekly media briefing at James Park on Tuesday, BYisrael appealed to Tobagonians to demand more information on the Sandals project from those in authority.

“This is where I am asking you the citizens of Tobago again, you cannot allow them, you cannot sit down and allow them to continue pushing these things down your throat. You have to keep standing up.

“We cannot start to have a conversation about what needs to be in that contract after the contract has been signed, sealed and delivered - that makes no sense. We cannot go in blindly and have a contract signed, sealed and delivered without us the people of Tobago having meaningful inputs on what goes into that contract. I think that is what the government does not understand the people of Tobago have been clamouring for. We have seen the bad deals, we have seen the deals before this that does not work on behalf of the people and we want to ensure that we do not go into such a deal blindfolded. We are not going to go in such a deal quietly and we are not going to just simply allow them to do it,” she said.

Her calls come on the heels of revelations by Sandals Chairman Gordon 'Butch' Stewart, as he addressed members of the media during a trip to Barbados over the last weekend.

During the said trip, Stewart told media personnel that there was no secret deal as the only document which exists with the Government is a “little MoU” and not a signed contract for the Tobago Sandals project. Stewart reiterated that there was no contractual agreement to discuss and even confessed that he did not know what was contained in the MoU which was signed with the Government.

“In his mind, the dealings between Sandals and the Government of Trinidad and Tobago is not a secret, but I was also more interested when he said that there was no request on behalf of Sandals International to keep any of this information secret.

“... when Mr Afra Raymond and others requested additional information, the response that was given by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago was that 'we cannot release the information that is in the MOU because Sandals asked us not to release that information'. Then on Saturday, we have Mr Butch Stewart saying that they did no such thing, they did not ask the Government of Trinidad and Tobago to keep any information secret, as a matter of fact, they don’t understand why the Government would say something like that because they do not have that authority,” she said.

She pointed to a few points raised by Stewart during the media briefing as she called on the people of Tobago to pay very special attention.

“One of the things that he said is that the brand Sandals - the entity - is not responsible and should not be responsible and would never be responsible for developing any of the islands that they go into. We seem to think that when Sandals come to Tobago it would solve all of our developmental problems and that is not the case, and I was happy when Mr Butch Stewart said very explicitly that this is not their job. Their job is to come in and run a facility and that is what they are going to do,” BYisrael said.

The Minority Councillor, despite her concerns, stressed she is not against the development of a Sandals in Tobago.

“We know that it is a good brand, we have seen their hotels, many of our members have actually stayed at their hotels before, so that there is nothing wrong with the actual brand known as Sandals.

“What we’ve always been concerned about is the fact that there seems to be a lot of secrecy around what is happening around the Sandals brand, particularly since it is a private entity coming in at the invitation of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago. We have to remember that we elected the Government of Trinidad and Tobago to represent each and every one of us, so we need to get answers from them,” she said.

However, she is of the view that Tobago’s development should not be hinged on the Sandals project.

“We should not hinge us having a proper airport, proper water systems and roads and sewerage and so forth on the fact that a hotel is going to come. We should be doing those things for the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago because that is what we elected the government to do."