NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said he complained to the president of Colombia about a Colombian billionaire’s failure to develop a promised multi-acre property in South Eleuthera.
His comments came six months after his administration signed the latest Heads of Agreement for the project, which is backed by billionaire Luis Carlos Sarmiento.
The agreement, which was signed at the Office of the Prime Minister in December, touted Cotton Bay Holdings Limited’s partnership with the Ritz Cartlon Reserve brand. Officials said the $200m project would employ 300 people during construction and 200 people during operation.
During that signing event in December, Davis acknowledged that the developer’s journey toward concretising the project had been difficult, but he expressed confidence that the project was finally ready to progress.
“We are confident that the investors and their partners are now ready to proceed and we are confident that this time is the charm,” he said.
He struck a different tone yesterday, however, saying he is disappointed with Sarmiento, the principal of Cotton Bay Holdings.
Speaking to reporters about his experience at the Summit of Americas in Los Angeles last week, Davis recalled his meeting with the Colombian president, Iván Duque Márquez.
“I expressed our disappointment over the fact that one of his citizens has been in The Bahamas for more than 20 years threatening to develop a 1,000-plus acres in South Eleuthera and that threat has not come to reality,” he said.
“As a result of that, he has indicated that he will be making an official visit to The Bahamas sometime in early July and he will bring that developer with him and he will go down there and make sure that he gets started somehow. So he’s going to join me in ensuring that the threat becomes a reality.”
The proposed Cotton Bay redevelopment has been in the works for years, spanning multiple administrations and several Heads of Agreement announcements.
After the latest agreement was signed, Sir Franklyn Wilson urged residents to be optimistic that the project would come to fruition this time.
He suggested in an interview with Tribune Business in December that former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham and “bad public policy” by his administration was responsible for the project’s failure to take off.
Ingraham, in response, said he was pleased to sign the agreement but was disappointed that the project did not move forward in the last 25 years.
Before the 2012 general election, Ingraham said his final act in Cabinet was to “finally give approval to the Sarmiento development at Cotton Bay”.
However, his party was voted out of office two days later and the deal went nowhere.
Perry Christie, meanwhile, announced a $100m phase one South Eleuthera development by Cotton Bay Holdings LTD and Mine Holdings LTD during a heads of agreement event in 2015.
The project once again went nowhere.
Davis suggested yesterday the land reform committee may recommend legislative changes to allow the government to exact a price on developers who hoard land or fail to live up to their promises.
“There’s no penalty (at the moment),” he said.
“When you had what we call the Immovable Properties Act that was enacted back in 76 under the previous Pindling administration, penalties were embedded in acquisitions by foreign persons who promised to do things and if they didn’t do it there were some penalties for not doing it.”
Davis said: “With the International Land Holdings Act, which was passed by Mr Ingraham, those penalties lost its teeth and so that is the situation as they are now and we are going to see how we revisit these matters to ensure that foreigners just don’t buy our land to horde for their future generation which are not Bahamian but ensuring that it is for the benefit of our future generations, Bahamians.
“We have a land reform committee that’s now looking into the whole reform of our land laws which will include acquisition both by Bahamians and foreigners and in that regard we expect recommendations to be made with how we deal with what I call the hoarding of land.”
