Sandals talks still ongoing

DISCUSSIONS are still ongoing between government and Sandals Resorts International (SRI) on a Sandals-branded resort in Tobago.

The Prime Minister, in the first of a two-part report to the nation titled Mind Your Business, seemed to suggest that the project may be “chased away” from Tobago by dissenting voices.

Speaking on the tourism thrust, Rowley said: “I don’t know what that project is going to be and I will tell you it today because I am expecting that we would have chased away what we thought in the government would have been good for us. “Throughout the Caribbean, from the Turks and Caicos Islands, Bahamas, Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados, Grenada and St Lucia – all of these islands have huge tourism projects employing tens of thousands of people. The minute you make a mention that one of those projects could be located in Tobago, all hell break loose in those who are opposed to the PNM.

“Tobago is the only place in the Caribbean where somehow a Sandals project will bring leprosy.”

He said the hotel would have been a government hotel. but managed by SRI. which would have increased tourist arrivals and boosted the tourism thrust.

In a message on Monday, SRI representative Sunil Ramdeen said the two parties would be meeting soon to discuss the project.

“We are still talking. We are working on it still.” He did not say when or where the meeting is expected to take place.