Raymond: Who approved Sandals MOU?

Chartered Surveyor and activist Afra Raymond.
Chartered Surveyor and activist Afra Raymond.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between Government and Sandals Resorts International (SRI) for a Sandals resort in Tobago is “deeply detrimental and not in the public interest,” and TT would not be getting back the money (estimated $3B invested in the project.)

So said Afra Raymond, former president of the Joint Consultative Council, who also raised the question of who was responsible for approving the agreement.

“The question of responsibility is a serious one,” he said, asking whether proposals were made, and rejected by Government as he noted at least three teams and various persons associated with the project, among them former Finance Minister Wendell Mottley, former deputy Governor of the Central Bank governor Terrence Farrell, who was also a chairman of Government’s Economic Development Advisory Board, and CLF chairman Rolph Balgobin.

He also mentioned Petrotrin’s chairman Wilfred Espinet, as well as the persons from Government ministries, the Tobago House of Assembly and a state enterprise set up specifically to deal with the project, the Golden Grove Buccoo Company Ltd (GGCBL.

Raymond was invited to speak on the MOU and its implications to Tobagonians. At a gathering at the Scarborough Library last Thursday night, he stressed that the information he was presenting was not his opinions but was based on fact, and an analysis of primary research.

“Who approved this MOU? … the terms of the agreement from my analysis are terms that we cannot get back the money, we are not going to get back the money.

“Is it that the committees of Mr Mottley and Mr Hazel… had made proposals that were rejected by the Cabinet… we didn’t get here by accident, you can’t tell me that Mr Butch Stewart (SRI chairman) just faxed this thing down here and we signed it?

“Was there a negotiation, yes or no? Was advice given, was advice taken? What was the framework going into this?” he asked. He estimated the investment by TT in the project at $3 billion.

He noted too that the MOU was signed (on October 10, 2017) by Tobago West MP Shamfa Cudoe on behalf of TT.

On February 27 this year, Raymond who is also a chartered surveyor and managing director of Raymond and Pierre Limited, requested the MOU through the Freedom of Information Act. He was not provided with the information and he took the State to court to November 28, one day before his case was to be heard in court.

In analysing the MOU, Raymond also said there were no “guarantees as to employment.

“With respect to procurement, there are no guarantees as to the procurement of goods and services. With respect to the cost of the resort, that entire cost is to be borne by the Trinidad and Tobago treasury.”

Raymond also explained the concept of transfer pricing, “which is how multi -company trick Government into paying as little taxes as possible in the countries where they make their money,” declaring:

“With respect to transfer pricing, there are clauses in the agreement that actually allows transfer pricing and our Government signed that and I think it’s wrong.

“Maybe the Prime Minister Dr Rowley, or Minister of Communications Minister (Stuart) Young should explain this one to us… is it that everything is still in discussion, in negotiations or is it that it is now too late, and we’ve gone passed that point.

“If things are still in discussions, we need to return to this agreement and set out a roadmap of how the agreement can be improved, if we are proceeding. This is nonsense… too frightening,” Raymond said.

He noted particularly the clause in the MOU that states that Government would finance the construction of the resort based on Sandal’s specifications of Sandals, and that event that Government fails to complete the development of the resort, it shall reimburse Sandals all wasted costs and expenses upon request.

He said in a renegotiated agreement, the clause relating to employment should be broaden to benefit both parties.

“Like stick break in we ears… I am not going to be silent about it. We have lost our way… You mean to tell me that we had some of our brightest and our best people negotiating this, and we couldn’t put in 10 per cent as a quota. That from day one, January 1, 2021 when the doors of Sandals and Beaches open that we have 200 Trinidad and Tobago citizens working there. Not just as waitresses and barmen but at all levels.

“Sandals has a college where they train their people. We should be picking people now with the unemployment in this country, 150 or 200 of them… that should be in the contract, it can’t be a silent part. What has happened to our young people… we’ve betrayed them, we’ve left them behind,” he said.

He also questioned the timing of making the MOU public, noting that both Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and Communications Minister Stuart Young had repeatedly said the details could not be divulged because of a confidentiality clause.

He suggested one possible explanation was because a final agreement was being drafted for signing for the project to proceed and called on Government to say whether this was so or whether negotiations were still possible. He recalled Communications Minister Stuart Young giving a deadline of mid-December and said Government had hired an international firm of lawyers, at a post cabinet media briefing at the Magdalena Grand Gold and Beach Resort in Lowlands.

At that November 16 press conference, Young had said then:

“… we have been engaged with the Sandals Executive for some time in discussions and in fact negotiations as to whether we can proceed with a Sandals and Beaches project in Tobago. There is no project in place until we have signed the various commercial agreements including a management agreement. What we have been asking Sandals to do, we, the people of Trinidad and Tobago will build the plant/ the hotel according to Sandals specs in Tobago and then they would manage it, we would utilise their brand of Sandals and Beaches for this project.

“As soon as we receive these commercial agreements, we have indeed engaged White and Case, international firm of lawyers who are also helping us on the energy side for empowered negotiations with BP and Shell, to represent the Government and the people of Trinidad and Tobago in this transaction.”

“We are looking at a possible visit by Mr Adam Stewart (SRI vice chairman) and his executive including the CEO on the week of the 10th December. I am hoping that between now and December 10, we would be able to exchange the relevant contractual documents between ourselves and hopefully, we would use that time for the concluding of the agreement and the execution of the agreement.”

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