Businessmen: Water Park Plans Are Theirs
A pair of businessmen who have been developing plans for a Bermuda water park in recent years say they were stunned when Government this week announced a competing attraction would be getting the go-ahead.
Jamal Hawker and Roy Wenting of J&R Attractions issued a statement in which they expressed surprise that Bermuda Family Entertainment Ltd.’s “essentially” identical water park plan had been given the thumbs-up after they were repeatedly told by Government there was no land available for their proposed development.
Yesterday [Oct 28] afternoon they held a press conference to address the proposed new water theme park, saying that they were “shocked” when they received numerous calls congratulating them on success in achieving government’s approval to my proposed project of a water park in Bermuda. They say, however, that this was not their proposal but someone else’s “with essentially the exact same plans”.
Mr Hawker continued on to say “There is continuous concern about the lack of transparency in government and we felt that the actions taken in this matter is indeed a cause for concern. While we did not expect to be guaranteed the granting of this proposal we are shocked at the utter disregard of our plans.”
The full statement follows below:
On the night of Tuesday, October 26, 2010, I received numerous calls congratulating me on my success in achieving government’s approval to my proposed project of a water park in Bermuda. These calls continued into the morning after similar stories were published on the web and in print. Upon investigating what was behind the well-wishes, I was shocked – this was not my proposal but someone else’s (with essentially the exact same plans).
Over the last 36 months, myself and an overseas partner have been researching and developing a purpose-built water park and go-kart facility that included adequate parking, social/family areas, enviro-friendly sustainable energy resources and full accessibility for the special-needs community as well as developing ideas to help better our current social and economic woes using this facility and its programs as the catalyst.
In the last 12 months my partner and I have networked and secured resources both in Bermuda and abroad. We have had countless meetings to discuss our plans with and seek assistance from private parties, WEDCO, and government officials including Glenn Blakney MP. Our ideas were welcomed and our efforts praised. We left each meeting with a brighter hope for our project due to the reception received. However we were often told that the idea was innovative and a must for Bermuda BUT there was currently no land available for this. Our initial talks included requesting various venues to lease land-most specifically and preferred, Morgan’s Point.
These new announced developments have caused us great concern for the project and Bermuda as a whole. Our project, in some aspects, brought about the same results but using less land as well as ironically included or addressed many of the ideas suggested or concerns raised by the People of Bermuda in their comments both to me and in on-line comments.
There is continuous concern about the lack of transparency in government and we felt that the actions taken in this matter is indeed a cause for concern. While we did not expect to be guaranteed the granting of this proposal we are shocked at the utter disregard of our plans that have been brought to them over the course of the past three years as well as the similarity in ideas which we revealed to them in our initial talk including the features(incl. go-kart track), location and even name (all of which can be substantiated though correspondence with vendors, government, WEDCO, as well as a printed material and a website we created for our presentations to the same).
We ask that our concerns and efforts be addressed or at least recognized. We would not be averse to these plans even being put out to tender (which it probably should be). We recognize in doing so we may not have been promised the grant but at least would know that we had a fair opportunity to present this plan to the Government and people of Bermuda. At the end of the day, had this been done fairly, and we were still not successful we would have at least felt a sense of accomplishment and would have optimistically rerouted our time, energy and resources into finding another opportunity to better Bermuda. Unlike now where we have to assume it’s completely pointless.
Unfortunately you have been added to the long line of business proposals put forward by entreprenurial minded Bermudians to this government, only to have those well laid out and researched plans ‘hijacked’ by this ‘government of the people’.
Global Hue anyone??
I would have thought by now, that everyone and his dog knows that you should NEVER go to the Government with an idea.
If they like it, they will say “no” to you, then hijack it and present it as their own. If they don’t like it, then it won’t happen anyway.