June 25, 2020
This trend of wealthy foreign investors trying to bully small Caribbean and Central American countries has been around since the Independence of many of our countries.
This past week, we’ve had our eye on a few developing matters. The first is two issues in Grenada where with one there is an Egyptian billionaire, Naguib Sawiris, who feels because he has spent a few million dollars already and is promising to spend upwards of $350m of it in Grenada that it entitles him to tell Dr Keith Mitchell and the people of Grenada any old thing that comes to his mind. His gaffe was telling the people of Grenada, in front of Dr Mitchell, that the airport needs to be privatized because of the poor customer service and the lack of friendly workers at the airport- While it may have some merit to it, you simply can’t come into people’s country no matter how much money you have and are spending and tell people any old thing that comes to your head.
The second matter in Grenada has to do with a Citizenship by Investment project that an investor is claiming Dr Mitchell is trying to “squeeze the life out of.” Warren Newfield, principal of True Blue Development and leading the development at the Kimpton Kawana Bay resort, is going around the world saying that Dr Mitchell is trying to squeeze the project to death by not allowing him to use the CBI vehicle and using Grenadian money to supplement the CBI project at Kimpton Kawana with $90m. Mr Newfield was also the former Ambassador of Grenada in Miami, Florida. (Something you can imagine raises eyebrows internationally, if not legally as a civil servant using government funds and his position to develop his own private project may be something that could be illegal).
Then we have the matter of Royal Caribbean Cruise Line using all of their influence in The Bahamas in trying to get crown land already granted to a Bahamian entrepreneur and the government going along with it. The matter is currently in front of a court over who has the lease of the crown land first, but that is not stopping RCCL from announcing that it has secured the said parcels of land from the government and investing more and more money in The Bahamas while the government laps it up.
While RCCL is not overtly hostile to the Bahamian entrepreneur, they may as well be hostile and put up fences and security at the property on prime real estate on the coveted Paradise Island.
In almost all cases, foreign investors win but they take reputational hits and never can build the trust needed from the people to help market their investments.
I know for Dr Mitchell he has been around the block a few times and has seen investors in Grenada come and go, so he takes these things with a grain of salt and tact. Dr Hubert Minnis in The Bahamas, however, is beyond green, being in his first term as prime minister of The Bahamas and has made significant mistakes in dealing with projects and initiatives that are related to the RCCL Paradise Island project.
For starters, RCCL has pledged, but not fully executed, to buy and revitalise the Grand Lucayan hotel in Grand Bahama, something the Minnis administration put their necks out for as being a done deal with RCCL. Only to find out that there are some hidden covenants that the government has not shared with the Bahamian people on the Grand Lucayan sale and it has left pundits thinking that the Paradise Island crown land arrangement is a sweetener for RCCL for it helping to seal the Grand Lucayan sale in totality.
The Minnis administration from this perspective is not being bullied, they are being outsmarted by intelligent international businessmen. Typical for new governments, these investors try them. But the Bahamian entrepreneur caught in the middle of this is being bullied and pushed around, despite a pending court ruling on the land dispute.