Tag: Sandals MoU

No tax holiday for Sandals – Trinidad and Tobago Guardian

The T&T Guardian newspaper interviewed Afra Raymond on the issue of the renewed engagement of the Sandals hotel group to develop a resort in Tobago. The following article, written by Andrea Perez-Sobers and published on Friday, April 4, 2025, is presented below. Click here to read the complete article on the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian website.

If the State is to revisit and fund the Sandals mega-project in Tobago, the hotel must pay proper rates of tax and rates of pay to its staff.

There ought to be no tax holidays or concessions if the entire complex is to be funded by public money and on publicly owned land.

That’s according to former head of the Joint Consultative Council (JCC) Afra Raymond, responding to former prime minister Dr Keith Rowley’s statements on March 15 that he has personally reached out to the Sandals’ owner with a plea to take another look at the island.

“I didn’t give up after all that (first failed attempt). Recently, I spoke to the leadership at Sandals, and I asked them to come look at this again, and if I was the problem, I wouldn’t be there moving forward,” Rowley said, at the commissioning of Tobago’s new terminal of the ANR Robinson International Airport..

Continue reading “No tax holiday for Sandals – Trinidad and Tobago Guardian” →

Property Matters – State owned hotels

‘Manufactured consent’ is supported by “…effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion…“.
—Noam Chomsky

citcThis article is based on notes for my presentation today to the Fourth Caribbean International Tourism Conference (CITC 2019) at UWI’s Cave Hill campus. My presentation will be on Trinidad & Tobago’s State-owned hotels to outline the results and provisional conclusions of my research. I designed that research program to examine the existing State-owned hotels as a way of understanding the real prospects for the large-scale Tobago Sandals being proposed by the current government in 2015.

I am questioning the role of our responsible elites in light of Dr Terrence Farrell’s ‘Where do we go from here‘ speech to the Queen’s Park Cricket Club on 22 November 2019.  Dr Farrell also chaired a THA-appointed Committee to recommend a Medium-Term Policy and Planning Framework for Tobago. Those proposals were made on 12 November 2019 and included three new all-inclusive hotels for Tobago adding about 1,800 new rooms. Continue reading “Property Matters – State owned hotels” →

Property Matters – the Cost of the Candle

The previous articles, here and here, delved into the meaning of counterfactuals, those being baseless claims, hypotheses or beliefs. In those cases, I dismantled the dishonest discourse of some of our thought leaders, who should certainly know better. The prior examples were rooted in the sobering racist beliefs expressed by too many educated and responsible people, that is my view.

This week I continue my Season of Reflection by delving into the almost-forgotten Tobago Sandals MoU litigation which forced publication of that important document. This article will be dealing with the issues relating to the legal fees paid in that matter, so it does not repeat the points in the MoU or anything like that.

Legal-fees-1

Continue reading “Property Matters – the Cost of the Candle” →

Property Matters – Sandals Shuffle

Property Matters – Sandals Shuffle

“…we are running a Country, not a Company…”
—Mia Mottley QC MP, Barbados PM – from her inaugural budget Wednesday, 20 March 2019

 

This title occurred to me due to the quiet backsliding of the main supporters of the Tobago Sandals project. This is the kind of situation where people thought they were operating safely in the dark, until someone suddenly opens the door and turns on the lights. The emergence of Sandals’ recent skirmishes have also reminded me of a shuffle.

Those shameless promoters told the public repeatedly about how satisfactory the existing arrangements were for State-owned hotels and went on to explain the special benefits of Sandals and so on and so forth. The steady exposure of the rickety arrangements for the existing hotels and the publication of the Tobago Sandals MoU have combined to end the scheme. Sunlight is really the best disinfectant. Continue reading “Property Matters – Sandals Shuffle” →

Property Matters – Tobago Sandals MoU-MoU

moumou

—from Lise Winer’s ‘Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago’ (p. 619)

‘The Truth eats Lies’

—from Marlon James’ latest epic ‘Black Leopard, Red Wolf’

The previous article stated that over $5.0 Billion of Public Money was spent in the first 6 months of 2009 during the CL Financial bailout, under that MoU. Yes, that is the same type of document which we were so loudly being told is not binding and can be completely renegotiated, in relation to Tobago Sandals.

The publication of the Tobago Sandals MoU at the end of November 2018, forced by my litigation, set those misleaders to try diverting concerns by claiming it was all open for discussion. Of course it is possible to renegotiate any contract, or MoU for that matter, but that is trite and explains nothing. Probably intentionally so, really.

The limits of renegotiation are rooted in the bargaining strength of the parties. Which means that the party with stronger leverage can in fact call for renegotiation and likely obtain improved terms. The weaker party will almost inevitably agree to renegotiation, in the course of which serious concessions will be obtained by the stronger party.

The recent episodes of Sandals shutdown/withdrawals in both Antigua and Barbuda and the Turks and Caicos Islands are crucial in understanding this ‘Carefully Crafted Confusion’. In both those cases, Sandals spent the capital to build the resort, but yet were still able to shutdown to seek further concessions. In the Tobago case, Sandals was investing no capital. Even in what I am now calling the Lok Jack Gambit (which I will get to in the next part) no Sandals capital was at risk. The point being that if Sandals was intended to have no capital at risk in Tobago, T&T would have been in a far weaker negotiating position than any of the other Caribbean countries. That is the precipice we were facing, the deep peril which our misleaders are trying to normalise. Continue reading “Property Matters – Tobago Sandals MoU-MoU” →

Property Matters – Tobago Sandals silence

rainer_young
Sandals CEO Gebhard Rainer (left) and Minister in Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young, MP at a news conference on Tuesday announcing the withdrawal of Sandals from the Tobago resort project.

#barefacts
#finefinefine

This week I will examine the response to Sandals unexpected withdrawal on Tuesday 15th January 2019 from the proposed large-scale development at Buccoo/Golden Grove Estates in Tobago. I was very surprised by Sandals stated refusal to proceed with this Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement in which no private capital was to be invested. When the Press Conference was announced, I believed that the deal for the proposed Resorts was to be signed.

It was clear that the mood from the head table was a gloomy one. The blame for this aborted project was placed on the ‘badgering’ and ‘negative publicity’ from a minority of commentators and political operators.

The striking official silence on the contents and implications of the MoU is damning, given the scale of the project and the amount of political capital which had been invested in the Tobago Sandals proposals. Continue reading “Property Matters – Tobago Sandals silence” →

VIDEO: Panel discussion on Sandals “pull out” on CCN TV6 – 15 January 2019

sandals-panel-tv6.png

On the evening of Tuesday, 15 January 2019, Political Editor at CCN TV6 Juhel Browne (Right) spoke with (L-R) CCN’s Head of the Multimedia Business Desk, Anthony Wilson, UNC Senator Saddam Hosein and Chartered Surveyor and Transparency Advocate Afra Raymond on the turn of events following the withdrawal by the Sandals Group from the deal with the T&T government to manage a Sandal/Beaches resort in Tobago.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW Part I and Part II on CCN TV6

AUDIO: Interview on MORE 104.7 FM on Sandals Tobago “pull out”

Radio More FM 104.7Afra Raymond is interviewed by David Walker on 104.7 MORE FM on the debacle of the collapse of the projected Sandals managed luxury resort in Tobago. The MoU details and the actions of the State in its negotiations towards the MoU are discussed. Audio courtesy MORE 104.7 FM

Programme Date: Thursday 17th January 2019
Programme Length: 00:27:40

VIDEO: The Morning Brew interview re Sandals pull out – 16 January 2019

CNC3 LogoAfra Raymond was interviewed on The Morning Brew on CNC3 Television regarding the pull out of the Sandals Group from the proposed deal to manage a new Sandals and Beaches resort in Tobago. The publication of the details of the memorandum of understanding is questioned as a catalyst for the pull out decision. Video courtesy CNC3 Television

Programme Date: 16 January 2019
Programme Length: 00:12:58

Property Matters – Tobago Sandals Roles

This article will delve into the roles of the various officials and public Institutions who are responsible for this Tobago Sandals MoU.

Information Approach

This process followed the familiar pattern of information management, in which the ‘Underlying Commercial Arrangements’ are intentionally obscured, while other details are selectively provided.

topsecretIt is clear that there was no intention to disclose the MoU, given the strong official resistance to my request under the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA). The entire nine-month period of my challenge was one of Carefully Crafted Confusion, with both sides claiming repeatedly that there was no secret, yet at the same time there were serious issues of commercial confidentiality. Of course, only one of those could be the truth. My litigation forced both Sandals and our public officials to decide which version was true, so the MoU was released on the day before our first Court hearing.

That MoU also contains a confidentiality clause which only permits any disclosure with the agreement of the other party. The parties promised each other to keep those important secrets safe. Continue reading “Property Matters – Tobago Sandals Roles” →