Submitted by John Dillinger
I have followed your blogs [BU] with regards to the Four Seasons and Professor Persaud’s decision to ask the NIS to invest in the project as opposed to bring in international investors like the late PM David Thompson mandated him so to do. Was not the Professor to use his international connections to bring in the investment needed to restart the project? If so should we take it that he has failed to get the interest of the international investment community..the hedge funds, venture capitalists etc. to invest in Four Seasons? If so, then why?
Moreover based on two recent articles in the Nation Newspaper, one on November 24th quoting Minister Chris Sinckler as saying he expects the NIS to make a decision by the end of this week (coming after the now famous extraordinary Cabinet meeting of November 15th to “discuss” the Four Seasons project) and that the Minister of Labour and Social Security was “working closely” with the NIS on the matter. Does all of this smell like a hint of political interference in the NIS decision process with regards to the project at all, especially when it was reported that the NIS had been advised not to invest in the project?
The second major article, coming on the heels of the downward revision of Barbados’s outlook from STABLE to NEGATIVE this week, was an article saying that Standard & Poors was closely monitoring the progress with regards to the project – how strategically timed and well placed for this article. Can we conclude that this is all meant to influence (read: pressure) the NIS into a particular decision. I hope that the Tony Marshall led NIS Board with the learned Dr Justin Robinson as Deputy Chairman would do the ethical and honorable thing and resign if they vote with political sword of Damocles hanging over their heads…remember that it is ALL OF BARBADIAN WORKERS future pension that they are dealing with, it isn’t monopoly money – the remainder of us don’t have the benefit of a big UWI pension or large Barclays pension when we retire…we depend on the NIS,
Please don’t throw our money into an empty whole while your own is secure….or else you may be inviting Occupy Four Seasons, Barbados’s version of Occupy Wall Street or worse yet, the beginning of Bajan Spring (our own local version of the Arab Spring) Do you really want that on your conscience gentlemen?
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