Submitted by Anthony Davis
Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy is hitting back at critics of the decision to build the multi-million dollar Hyatt hotel on Bay Street, the city. “In his contribution earlier this evening to the debate on the 2016 Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals, Sealy defended the international hotel chain, which he said would enhance the island’s tourism product while generating employment. “I know the Member for the City (Jeffrey Bostic) doesn’t agree with that (opposition to the hotel); he is the biggest supporter of Hyatt and I am the second biggest supporter. I am all for jobs, I am all for tourism coming to the people of St. Michael – page 6 of Barbados TODAY dated 17 August, 2016
Dear Mr. Minister of Tourism, it is said that the last shall be the first, and the first shall be last. So, let me start with the last paragraph of your noise first.
I find it a puerile reason for wanting a hotel in St. Michael, just because there are hotels in the two parishes which you mentioned. It reminds me of a child who asks for something just because his parents have given his sister/brother something. Also, Mr. Minister, for your information, there are already three hotels in St. Michael, and all within walking distance of each other. They are: the Island Inn, the Radisson and the Hilton – which is a Government entity – and so you should at least know about that one. The Hilton is on Needham’s Point and I don’t think that that has moved. The Island Inn and Radisson are in Aquatic Gap.
Re your ” he (Jeffrey Bostic) is the biggest supporter of Hyatt, and I am the second biggest supporter” statement.
Mr. Bostic himself has declared that he is for Hyatt, but there’s a fundamental difference of your attitudes towards that project. You want it at all costs, whether it would be detrimental to the environment or the social fabric of this island, whereas Mr. Bostic is of the opinion that progress should not come at any and every cost. He stated that in his position on planting of that monstrosity on Browne’s Beach., he wants various things looked into first – including an environmental impact assessment, and a social impact assessment.
As far as I know, it is no longer good practice to build hotels on the beach, but on the land opposite the beach, which is being practised in the USA, and other tourism-oriented destinations. That is why I would like to know why Hyatt is coming here to plant a hotel on one of our favourite beaches, and one to which those tourists who return year after year go.
How do you start building if you have no planning permission?
How can such a 15-storey twin-tower colossus blend in with the Bethel Methodist Church, and the St. Paul’s Anglican and Catholic churches?
Would Hyatt be allowed to build a hotel on any beach in the USA now?
Why are we allowing a hotel conglomerate to build here, if all of the top personnel will be foreign?
That smacks of bigotry.
How can you allow that to happen, Mr. Minister?
Seeing that Barbados is a water-scarce island, and so many people are being already deprived of that commodity – although paying high water rates – from where will all of the water come?
What about the waste?
Will it have it’s own water source, and waste disposal?
It is a sad state of affairs when any government can railroad such plans for the benefit of a foreign entity.
UNESCO is very strict when it comes to the stipulations which it gives to those countries which have World Heritage sites. I fear that if the stipulations for maintaining Bridgetown and its Garrison as a World Heritage site are breached then it will revoke the World Heritage site designation of the above, and we will be left without an important tourist attraction!
Also, Barbados is one of the most expensive tourism destinations, and it will now be more expensive since the tax collector has added a new levy to his taxes which in effect brings the VAT to 20% when, as he hiked it to seventeen and a half per cent, he promised to return it to 15% within a year.
However, promises mean nothing to this Government.
WE, the populace of Barbados, DO NOT WANT THIS HOTEL, NOR ANY OTHER, ON BROWNE’S BEACH!
The beach belongs to the populace of this country – not to any government!
113 responses to “Minister Sealy, No 15-Storey Hyatt Hotel On Dah Beach”
@Past Zone
Always so many questions and few answers. The public is always left to speculate.
@Bush Tea
To expand on your earlier point. Is it the pinacle of stupidity to have James Paul express outrage about the chicken wing issue and others yet he sits on the backbench in parliament and toes the line when the divide is called?
@David
James Paul outrage is a nothing more than sham rage for the benefit of the BAS members. He is so conflicted it is not even funny but BAS members are stupid and apparently like it so.
Almost certainly he knows a lot about and benefits from the licenses granted for the importation of chicken wings.
William Skinner in your 4:52 am post you said:-
So the question is: Was Minister Donville Inniss deliberately misleading Parliament when he stated that certain criteria were met in relation to the Hyatt project ?
I don’t think he was misleading Parliament. The parliamentarians almost certainly know what the deal is.
He was merely letting the general public know that the PM was following the trend set in the Cahill affair and pursuing a path that would irrevocably lead to his surreptitious approval of the Hyatt project.
Nothing more!
Is the Hyatt deal to fund the DLP upcoming election campaign?
are-we-there-yet
Even if the PM approves Hyatt, that does not mean it will be built. This is shaping up to be the mother of all battles and almost certainly nothing will be done on that site before the upcoming elections.
Potentially this Hyatt matter is worse and more politically charged and damaging for the DLP than even the CAHILL affair.
@ Passing thru August 25, 2016 at 10:11 PM
“Nobody holds a brief for Maloney other than to dismiss the nitpicking prattle of sheeple and nomadic Commisiong to harass yet another foreign investor from our shores. The Baje Guardians a service club whose aim is to instill patriotism in communities held a survey on Hyatt at a watering hole in Parish Land. Not one person of twenty something objected to Hyatt. The majority reacted with the question “”Isn’t everbody saying Bridgetown is dead Hyatt is a step towards bringing the city back to life. “”
The sinister politically hatched plot to rob the urban poor of jobs to feed their families at the same time kick start the revitalization of Bridgetown is doomed to failure.”
Passing thru, do you ‘vaguely’ recall similar arguments were advanced to propagandize the scams called the Pierhead marina and the Sugar Point Cruise Ship terminal? Aren’t the poor peaceful polite but still hungry unemployed people of Bridgetown still “Waiting” for their pie-in-the-sky projects to lift them out of their favela-like existence to a tall ‘storey’ of mythic Babel happiness?
What you should be telling the BU audience is who will be paying for, and receiving in the final analysis, all these studies, consultancies and ‘towering’ finders’ fees as was done in the other projects which have yet to start and uplift poor dying Bridgetown which Lord Nelson once endearingly referred to as the hellhole of the Caribbean.
Prices will increase up to 5 % due to new import tax in 2017. In other words, next recession in 2017, new taxes announced during budget speech in August 2017.
This government is doing NOTHING, absolutely ZERO to reduce the bloated public service. This public service is like a vampire in the neck of goddess Bim, sucking all remaining life energy.
Lol…Miller, vous savez qu’ils ne seront pas comme celui-là, ils ont vraiment eu un nerf bien.
That Maloney was desperate to get rid of Mark Cummins so they could put a real stooge/pawn in place, these parasites and beasts make ya sick to your stomach.
@Tron
The idea of the 2% levy is to dampen spen to protect the foreign reserves. It is a dangerous game if we accept that growth in the local economy is based on 70% out of every dollar fuels local economic activity!
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@David
So they tell us. However, in the economies of the North and West, nobody looks at foreign reserves. The economic and political discussion is about budget deficit and GDP, two sides of the same coin.
If their argument was right we had to increase taxes every year again and again to protect the foreign reserves. I really do not know any country with higher consumer prices in relation to income than Barbados. The average prices for food, cars etc are definitly on the same level or even higher than Australia, Norway and Switzerland – three countries where the average income is 300 – 500 % higher than Barbados. The consumer sector is nearly dead. Or do you know anybody building a private home just now besides people with very deep pockets?
It would be more honest to tell the citizens in Bim that higher taxes are necessary to finance the many servants in the public service.
Why do these “educated” government ministers need to be spoon fed and babysat, if they attach a 2% levy on imports, ya put a system in place to cover ya losses, in that way ya make up the short fall and loss that fueled the economy…no one should have to tell them that, a housewufe knows that is good economic sense which can be applied to any tiny or gigantic economy, why does it sound like the peoole on the island hsve to deal with retards for leaders…why does it seem that the blogs have better skills at identifying the economic problems on the island and are more capable of supplying the solutions.
…..a housewife.
Ya get tired of incompetence and inefficient people….none of these government ministers would be hired in the US or Canada for important work that people’s lives depend on, if they do, it would be short term and once it’s seen how mediocre their skills are….they would be immediately terminated.
@ Tron
Foreign reserves are important to Barbados because it is a small open economy that attempts to maintain a fixed exchange rate. The economies of the North and West that you are comparing to have floating exchange rates.
The average prices for food cars etc in Jamaica are about on the same level as Barbados, but the average income is only 35% as high.
I don’t make excuses for the lack of efficiency and effectiveness of the Barbados public sector, but I will point out that if the public service was slashed quickly it would definitely cause a recession to suddenly remove that purchasing power from the consumer economy. The rational way of adjusting the size of the public sector is by attrition combined with using ICT to improve productivity.
@peterlawrencethompson
I totally agree with your point that the public sector cannot be reformed within a week. However, we already lost eight years. The measures I propose should be implemented step by step during the next 10 years to give the private sector a chance to compensate for the losses in the public sector. If the current government had started in 2008 to adjust the public sector every year a bit, we won´t face this drastic increase of taxes. Other reforms are staff-neutral and can be implemented at once. Possible reforms are: extension of working hours to 42-45 hours per week (without pauses), no new hiring (especially in the sector of secretary work, since we have IT today) and no promotion for a period of 5 years. Also important is to avoid salary increases higher than growth of GDP and to rethink the concept of “allowances” (a concept unknown in many countries).
Concerning foreign reserves, there is a strong link between the printing of local money and the reduction of foreign reserves – at least if we follow statistics and IMF. The printing could stop if the public sector was reformed step by step.
What is not working at all is draconian financial austerity (drastic increase of taxes) plus sudden lay-offs on a large scale AT THE SAME TIME. Greece is a warning example. A country completely destroyed. The data of the IMF might be right, but the recommendations are not in many cases, since they focus on austerity instead of economic growth.
To sum up, Barbados needs a comprehensive package of reforms targeting a period of at least 10 years instead of yearly and sudden adjustments after budget speeches.
http://ow.ly/EWgd303Choo
Having millions or billions of paper money and political friends does not make ya invincible, ever so often everyone is brought back to earth, real hard.
The is issue is bigger -if that is possible- than slashing a bloated public service. It is about holding the government accountable. Erskine Sandiford slash the public service and what did subsequent office holders do? Padding the public service is a key tool used by political parties to sustain popularity. Have a read of the Auditor General reports from 2006. This is all dejavuish.
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@ Tron
The only way that the private sector will compensate for the losses in the public sector is through entrepreneurship. The current private sector of mostly construction & retail is no more efficient and effective than the public sector. The only thing the current private sector are good at is whining for more tax concessions.
It makes little sense for us to cry about what might have been done in 2008… that is spilt milk. What should we do in 2016?
I agree that we need public sector reforms, but that is dealing with a symptom rather than a cause… we need deep cultural change across the private and public sectors.
Education as we inherited it from the British is worse than useless, it is destructive to educate our children on a model that was designed for the factories of Victorian England. Education needs to stimulate curiosity, questioning the status quo, respect for truth and not authority.
We also need to understand that God will NOT provide… our future is in our own hands and if we do not take responsibility for it no other entity, natural or supernatural, is going to provide for our children. It’s never happened in the past and will never in the future.
We need to stop measuring our progress only by the money we earn. Money is actually a very poor substitute for value.
We need, most of all, to help each other, particularly the least fortunate among us.
The ministers get advice and solutions from bloggers that they do not deserve, had it not been for the unnecessary suffering of the people, children, the elderly, the younger folks, the politicians should be left alone to bungle and stumble their greedy ways into some foreign prison.
Govt cut public sector and the Unions get all fired up. The private sector naarative they cannot take on more employees for a mirage of reasons.
Whether barbadians want to face the realities or not their alternatives are limited to having the presence of outside investors to help spur growth
Furthermore not many local investors are doing much in the expansion of their business
Local entrepreneurs(or start up business) takes a long time about ten years max before the business can handle a formidable work load. In the meanwhile govt still has the task of finding ways by which the economy can grow in a faster period of time and business that can afford a pay load entry of new employment
The idea that Barbados belives that every outside investor only right to exits on the islands should be cemented in what is in barbados best interest is ludicrous and a stone throw away from socialist mentality
peterlawrencethompson August 26, 2016 at 11:55 AM #
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Education as we inherited it from the British is worse than useless, it is destructive to educate our children on a model that was designed for the factories of Victorian England. Education needs to stimulate curiosity, questioning the status quo, respect for truth and not authority.
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I guess Deltro Solar chose to locate its solar panel factory in Barbados because the education model is designed to produce factory workers. They will need 500 workers for the factory; yeh right
@ Due Diligence
Sadly, the whole Deltro Solar deal is a house of cards. They have bought the leftovers of a failed solar energy enterprise and shipped them to Barbados. The “factory” will simply be an assembly plant for out of date photovoltaic components that Deltro picked up cheap. They will assemble some panels, install them at Waterford, then close down the “factory” because they have not secured any source of supply of the actual photovoltaic cells. Furthermore, they have no chance of competing at a world level with Chinese and Indian companies a thousand times their size. They will then provide no employment to speak of except for maintenance but will suck money out of Barbados with the long term energy supply contracts that they will have negotiated. It is sad that so many Bajans can’t see how they are being abused but these fraud artists.
There is an important role for the solar energy industry in Barbados, but the Deltro deal puts it in peril because the grid can only be a certain percentage solar. That percentage should all be local companies so that more of the the money that you pay every month stays in the island economy. After Deltro, local entrepreneurs will be shut out.
@ Tron
Concerning foreign reserves, the bloated public service is not the reason for the drain on foreign reserves; we pay them in local currency. The drain is mostly two factors: paying for imports, and repaying foreign debt. You can’t do either of these with local currency.
The steps to improve this situation are to import less and incur less foreign debt. Not complicated. It also helps to earn more foreign currency by improving exports (tourism is an export industry).
Another downfall for the island are the contracts the squatters in parliament negotiate either without reading them, understanding them or just maliciously signing them just for the photo op…
…..the contracts the ministers sign with local business people and foreign investors….NEVER…benefit the majority and are ALWAYS…negotiated for decades into the future to burden the people on the island for decades, while enriching themselves and those they sign these contracts with, longer than they all can live.
Stupidy…the Trini slang does not even begin to describe, why for once in their backward lives cant these ministers negotiate contracts that benefits the island and people, beyond a few measly jobs…why must the people be always burdened with debt after the ministers negotiate these deals.
The education system was designed to keep the leaders as the educated illiterate.
Maybe Gaston Browne of Antigua can show them how to put the parasitic investors who exploit the negotiation process, in their place, teach the squatters in parliament how to negotiate to benefit their people and country, maybe Dumbville could ask Browne for pointers..
A little birdie mentioned to me today that the last Maloney lobbyist left in the Stuart cabinet is Dumbville Inniss. His handling of the Rock Hard cement bond at Spring Garden issue was the turning point for a lot of them.
peterlawrencethompson August 26, 2016 at 1:49 PM #
Agree
On a positive note, there is a very good likelihood that the Deltro solar panel factory will never produce a panel; and the Waterford farm will not happen, so no long term energy supply contracts for Deltro.
It is sad that Ministers of Government can’t see how they are being abused but these fraud artists.
How much forex has been spent so far to import Rock Hard cement?
Given the slowdown in construction activity has the country benefited from the opportunity cost?
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For what it is worth Waterford now has a nicely paved road, after many years of being in a bad state.
Hants August 26, 2016 at 8:15 AM #
http://i.imgur.com/GxRsLro.jpg?1
David August 26, 2016 at 4:00 PM
And hats off to the Ministry of Transport and Works maintenance team. We keep these guys down for the same simple reasons. Long before COW or Rayside or their side kicks came on the scene, the MTW and its predecessor Highway and Transport,h&t were building roads and bridges, many of which has stood the test of time.
This bridge,still standing, was completed in the early 1950’s by H&T,to take a maximum load of 9 tons.It is constantly used by many trucks coming out of the ‘sand hole’
http://i.imgur.com/yBHNpDJ.jpg?1
What construction? I only know some frustrated businessmen building their villas 😉
Past Zone August 26, 2016 at 8:59 AM #
I am curious to know about the parking requirements for a 15 storey building. It must need somewhere between 350 and 500 car parking spaces.
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There is a simple solution. Get Sintra ,or the one now working for BWA to bore a tunnel from the new Hyatt on Bay Street, under the outer Careenage to the never -been-used BTA multi storey car park down by Mrs Ram.
http://i.imgur.com/cXughVp.jpg?1
DD…the government ministers do not care about the abuse by local and foreign business people, every instance and opportunity abuse means and leads to a bribe for them, a finder’s fee, a padding of THEIR bank account, the abuses and long term exploitation of the island and people is NEVER a consideration by these politicians, never factored in to any equation. …that is why there is now a mad scramble to meet IMF recommendations.
Remember the Cahill scam and the crap Fruendel the Fraud and his gang of dummies signed on to…to impress a Canadian scam artist and to see what they could get for themselves…..and Bjerkham….did you see anything in that contract to benefit the taxpayers or anyone else in Barbados.
The retards ACs are there to claim they did better than the other Caribbean islands economically, like it’s some competition or popularity contest, when they are up to their useless lips in debt and created an astronomical deficit which they do not know how to reduce.
DD…Del Mastro claimed he was already given some concessions, it would have had to be Inniss, so they already have an agreement….but Fruendel is quiet.
peterlawrencethompson August 26, 2016 at 1:49 PM #
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“Furthermore, they have no chance of competing at a world level with Chinese and Indian companies a thousand times their size.”
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Certainly not now when there is a looming glut of solar panel production and slumping prices
See
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-23/solar-industry-braces-as-looming-glut-threatens-to-erode-prices
This Deltro thing is just not adding up. There has to be another angle that we are not considering.
LOOK MAN THESE GUYS DONE GET PERMISSION TO DO WHAT THEY HAVE TO DO, DELMATRO SAID HE HAD AH MEETING WID INNISS AN SINCLER, BUT THERE IS ANOTHER ONE WHO IS OVER THE CIVIL SERVICE, F S A.K.A BLACK MAMBA THAT HAS THE FINAL SAY. SEE THAT FOREIGN INVESTOR THAT BUILD AH MANSION ON THE WEST COAST, WHEN SAM INNISS WAS PROTESTING OVE THE BREAK WATER BARRIER THE MAN WAS BUILDING……THE MAN SAID HE WAS SURPRISE ABOUT THE PROTESTING OF MR. INNISS , BECAUSE HE GOT THE APPROVAL FROM THE PRIME MINISTER, THAT WAS IN JUNE 3RD 2016 PAPER, THIS BLACK MAMBA IS NOT SWEET AT ALL…..WATCH AN SEE WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN
@ Old Baje
The other angles for consideration are
(A) set up a new holding company in over and away land the is the parent company rather substantive owner of the junk solar tings dem and overvalue the $10 million assets at say US $125 million
(B) add specific shareholders in that company similar to the catering company with the contract at parliament buildings – you remember that thar scam
(C) authorize that the Government pay the overseas shell $125 million for the junk
(D) split up the $$ between the Porn King and El Masturbator (whu after all dem is jerking off 280,000 people and 40,000 Guyanese at the same time!!!)
So, irrespective of the ultimate demise of the outdated technology which will be set up at Waterford, the only losers in this deal will be the people of Barbados AS PER USUAL.
LEH WE ALL WUK UP AND HAVE A GOOD TIME!!!
Piece….simple in it’s creation, devastatingly evil in it’s execution.
Colonel Buggy August 26, 2016 at 5:40 PM #
Chuckle…..brilliant idea….ticks all the boxes……guaranteed loan,employment,consultancy fees,re-election.
“Can we get a panel of local experts to go on a TV program and tell everyone in 60 minutes what David wants the government to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to put down on paper?”
What foolishness is this? The cost of the EIA is the responsibility of the APPLICANT not the government.
BU notes that in today’s Sunday Sun several players have voiced their objection to the project in its original form. One is asking for a VIS. Some on this blog would have made a case that the objection was coming from DC only. Like we stated, the matter is with the PM.
#yourmovepmstuart
outsiders are expressing their views via media outlets that bajans have become a nation of complainers , So sad but true .
When Barbadians find meaningful and valuable solutions to their nations problem they would be taken seriously. A billion dollar corporation like Hyatt does not need the multiple frustrations that have become a milestone to be hanged around its neck by a debited nation, For what it is worth the time and energy Hyatt would have fighting a few dissenters Hyatt would benefit better going to another country within the carribbean region that understand the value of their financial contribution to an economy
Hyatt brand is well known world over and built along coastal lines world wide without being or known to have violated any of the named objections that have been mentioned in the planning of the Barbados Hyatt
Barbadians wanting to flex their muscles must bring solutions by having revitalization plans for the bay street area as the presence of brownes beach alone cannot do so.
Authenticity
Is this what the preservers under the UNESCO banner are fighting to preserve on bay street
Is this what the fight is all about
Bridgetown’s early serpentine street and alley configuration and also the roads in the Garrison retain their authentic networks. Both layouts continue in spite of the town’s transformation from a maritime-mercantile fortified port town to a contemporary cosmopolitan tropical city which has remained the island’s capital and national centre. Although several historic houses in Bridgetown have been replaced or restored, a significant number of remaining historic houses, some rapidly decaying, significantly contribute to the atmosphere of a historic city and should be conserved.
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the last paragraph is an indictment of our colonial masters who had left a city to fight for its own survival and now a city having to fight a new set of rules and regulations under the UNESCO banner denying the city a right towards economic and social progress of their own choosing.
How Sad a city after many years of colonial servitude left fight to find relevancy are not being told by a new set of master you have no right to do so
correction…..How Sad a city after many years of colonial servitude left fight to find relevancy are not being told by a new set of master you have no right to do so
How Sad a city after many years of colonial servitude left fight to find relevancy are NOW being told by a new set of master you have no right to do so
@David
The people keeping the most noise in support of the project do not know what they are talking about. Have no idea about tall buildings, town/streetscape, visual impact, massing, density etc, etc especially in the context of a world heritage site.
Isnt it ironic that the voices who want to remove Nelson from the center of Bridgetown are some of the same voices who have welcomed UNESCO to preserver the heart and soul of our colonial masters on a derelict and forgotten baystreet Could this be a twist of fate ?
@enuff
Further, Barbadians should take note, again minister Donville Inniss assuring Barbadians that the Hyatt TPD application was approved. Note the Prime Minister who has the final say has not said a work. This is the problem many have with this government, governance by stealth.
“Hyatt brand is well known world over and built along coastal lines world wide without being or known to have violated any of the named objections that have been mentioned in the planning of the Barbados Hyatt”
But Hyatt never had the lawbreaker Maloney and the 4 Seasons scam artists Cow, Bizzy, etc involved in any of it’s worldwide projects before, so they need to be aware of the local business peoplev hey are dealing with so that headquarters Chicago. ..can do it’s due diligence.
Fruendel will sink or swim with this one, but he will not deceive and he cannot use his usual secrecy and stealth and lies….to the people.
This is the only proof Hyatt needs to give it pause.
http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/84904/investors-day
@enuff
Clearly!
Here is a search string that shows it is normal for citizens of any country to protest when developers attempt to desecrate designated heritage sites.
https://www.google.com/?client=opera#q=protest+building+in+UNESCO+heritage+site