Running foreign investors

THE EDITOR: Not too long ago Sandals decided to bail out and not to build a hotel in Tobago. It said there was too much bacchanal doing business with TT. Sandals has built many hotels in the Caribbean with great success.

Now TT has embarrassed Derek Chin who invested heavily in the MovieTowne complex in Port of Spain many years ago: movie theatres, restaurants, entertainment, conference rooms, stores for hire, and modern playgrounds with swings and carousels for children, making MovieTowne a successful family experience.

WASA, T&TEC and TSTT are overstaffed and still do not make a yearly profit, wasting taxpayers' money, but no one goes into these companies to foreclose. Why did the Port Authority of TT, the State really, wait until the money owed by MovieTowne amount to millions of dollars?

Chin approached the State some years back to allow him to invest more money at MovieTowne to open Streets of the World, "uniting cultures from around the world to create an entertainment mecca" at Invaders Bay at the back of MovieTowne. This would have encouraged many more tourists and cruise ships to visit our shores and bring in more foreign exchange.

I will not be surprised if foreign investors who take all the risks will not to put their money in TT now.

PATRICIA BLADES

via e-mail