Prime Minister Mia Mottley continues to be committed to an aggressive international agenda which requires significant air travel to attend meetings and engage in meet and greets. Her latest stop Nassau in the Bahamas to attend the Annual Meeting and the AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum in Nassau.
While the Prime Minister is busy growing her international image, and we offer congratulations, her promise to intercede in the Savvy on the Bay matter remains one for fools.
But what I will say to you now is that I have said to the two gentlemen, ‘you have a timeline on these negotiations, and if these negotiations don’t finish within the next few weeks, there must be a ministerial statement to the Parliament and all of the facts laid bare, including how this matter started under the last government; why there was a need to go to court under the last government; how, therefore, the sale was proceeded with as a result of an act of specific performance; and why we would not have been able to act before when we said from the very beginning, those two lots in the middle were always car parks’,” the Prime Minister [Mia Mottley] explained.
Barbados Today (26 August 2023)
Today the traditional media has reported on a flare up between the management of Savvy on the Bay and the adjoining business Copacabana which required Minister of Transport and Works and Acting Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw to intervene. The tension between Savvy on the Bay and Copacabana has been reported many times in the BU space. What is obvious is that the Savvy on the Bay matter needs to be brought to a resolution – Prime Mottley agrees given her public pronouncement on the matter in August 2023 – however, there appears to be an effort to keep the matter in abeyance.
At the root of the dispute yesterday is a pipe running across Savvy land which was allegedly tampered with to divert water from Copacabana the adjacent property.
How long will Prime Minister Mia Mottley allow this matter to bubble? Instead scarce resources must be wasted with the Acting Prime Minister and minister in an already large Cabinet having to waste taxpayers dollars negotiating with an operator of a government excavator, not to mention the many other government officials present at the dispute. What are we doing?
See today’s Nation newspaper article.
Santia steps in at Savvy stand-off
By Carlos Atwell
Tempers flared at Savvy on the Bay yesterday as action by the Ministry of Transport and Works (MTW) agitated longstanding issues between management at the business and next-door neighbour Copacabana.
The matter lasted for several hours at the Bay Street, St Michael location until Minister of Transport and Works Santia Bradshaw arrived and presided over a compromise.
When the Weekend Nation arrived, an irate Sarah Taylor, the spokesman for Savvy, was upset personnel from the MTW’s Drainage Division were on their property to clear a blocked water pipe which was supposed to take water from areas such as Wellington Street and Nelson Street to the sea.
“Having MTW here digging on our property without just cause is crazy. Do we not have any rights? If there is a problem, meet with people first. It is so heart-breaking to try and do your best for your country by investing and how are you treated? Like your property is worth nothing. How is that fair?” she asked.
Taylor said she saw the excavator digging when she arrived on the property and after not receiving an answer to what they were doing, she stood in front of the excavator, blocking their progress. She said she then called for Bradshaw and Member of Parliament for The City, Corey Lane, as well as the police.
Members of the Town Planning Department and Kinch himself soon arrived on the scene. Kinch said the pipe was originally running through Lewis Gap but charged that it was diverted.
“I have no objection to Government building a drain across my boundary but no one should be able to dump water on another’s land so I blocked it up,” he said.
Blocked drain
Bradshaw arrived and spoke to the parties involved after which she told the media: “The Drainage Unit of the MTW responded to a report of a blocked drainage area which is responsible for bringing water from a lot of City districts to the sea. They responded to that [blocked] area which happens to be on the property of Savvy on the Bay, right next to Copacabana.
“It is clear from examination of the area with the drainage team that there is work which has to be carried out on the site in order for water to flow freely into the ocean. The team is going to do a further assessment to make a determination as to the best way to proceed and then we will meet again with the various parties and come up with a solution,” she said, adding she was grateful to Kinch and Taylor for agreeing to the terms.
Copacabana owner/ managing director Raj Chatrani said: “We understand that a public drain located in the property next to Copacabana has been blocked with concrete.
I can say that neither Copacabana nor myself, Raj Chatrani, have ever obstructed the public drain in question. We support any measures deemed necessary by the drainage unit to help resolve the problem that is causing flooding and overflow throughout the lower Bay Street area,” he said. (CA)
(front right) speaking with head of the Drainage Division, Andre Brice ( left), as operator 1 with the division, Alwyn Herbert, owner of Savvy on the Bay, Allan Kinch (partially hidden) and Sarah Taylor
listen in.
Source: Nation Newspaper
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