Baha Mar Developer, Bahamas Government Clash over Workers’ Pay

The government of the Bahamas won't continue to pay the salaries of non-Bahamian employees who work for developer Baha Mar Ltd., the company told staffers last week.

“We are shocked and extremely upset by this action — and we have urgently appealed to the government to reverse its damaging and short-sighted decision,” Magdalena Hamya, Baha Mar's vice president of human resources, wrote in a letter posted Wednesday to the website the company uses for employee relations.

In her letter Wednesday, Hamya accused Bahamian Attorney General Allyson Gibson of going back on her word.

“The Attorney General stated in the July 3 press conference that the employees 'should not be used as pawns in negotiations about the future of the project.'” she wrote. “Unfortunately it now appears that this is the path that the government has chosen to pursue.”

Bradley Roberts, chairman of the Bahamas' ruling party, called Hamya's letter “dishonest” in a statement published by the Bahamas Weekly.

“At all times the government was clear that its decisions were designed to protect the interests of the Bahamian people and our national sovereignty and to date has acted accordingly,” he wrote.

According to the Bahamas Tribune, Damian Gomez, the Bahamas' minister of legal affairs, said that “there is a likelihood” that the government will cover wages this pay period for Baha Mar's Bahamian employees.

The government has covered Baha Mar's 2,200-employee, $7. 5 million payroll for the two pay periods since Baha Mar Ltd. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a U.S. court on June 29. Payday for the current cycle is today.

On July 22, Bahamian Justice Ian Winder rejected Baha Mar's request to have its bankruptcy filing recognized in the Bahamas. On Friday, Winder will hear the Bahamian government's petition for the court to force Baha Mar out of the resort project. The government has asked the court to appoint a third-party liquidator in the company's place, which would oversee the restructuring of the resort.

The five-hotel Baha Mar Resort project, which at a projected cost of $3.5 billion is the most expensive development in Bahamas history, was originally scheduled to open by the end of 2014 with more than 2,200 new hotel rooms. Baha Mar Ltd. says the resort is 97 percent complete.

Source: Travel Weekly