Tourism Minister On Hyatt Contract Cancellation
The former Government cancelled the Park Hyatt contract late last year, Minister of Tourism Development and Transport Shawn Crockwell said today [Jan 7].
The Minister said that in September 2012 the former Government sent a letter to the developer giving him 30 days to cure the breach, and as he failed to do so the contract was officially terminated in October 2012.
Back in September 2012 — when he was the Minister of Tourism — Wayne Furbert told ZBM the agreement between the Government and developers of the planned Park Hyatt resort was “terminated.”
The following day he issued a statement saying he “misspoke,” and said that Mr Bazarian and his team were due to travel to Bermuda and the Ministry will be meeting with them the following week.
Subsequent requests to the then-Minister for clarification were not answered, however this weekend Mr Furbert — now the Shadow Tourism Minister — said the former Government terminated the agreement as a result of their failure to commence the development.
One Bermuda Alliance Chairman Thad Hollis said he was amazed at Mr Furbert’s statement, and noted that as the former Minister said the contract was terminated in September 2012 — which he retracted – it would be very easy to assume that the Bermudian public was misled due to the upcoming election.
Tourism Minister Shawn Crockwell said: “I can confirm that the previous Government did, in September, 2012, send a letter to the developer advising that the terms of the contract between the Government and the developer had been breached.
“The developer was given 30 days to cure the breach, according to the terms of the contract, but failed to do so. Therefore, in October, 2012 the contract was officially terminated.”
Minister Crockwell said that having taken legal advice from the Attorney General’s Chambers, there are many aspects of the contract termination that cannot be discussed publically.
However, Minister Crockwell added: “I would ask that the Bermuda public, especially St. George’s residents, remain patient whilst we assess the current state of affairs in relation to the Park Hyatt development and formulate a plan to move forward.
“There was also an Act passed in Parliament – the Park Hyatt Act – that must be addressed when the House resumes in February before any further action can be taken in relation to developing the site.”
Minister Crockwell said one of his priorities as Minister was to work with developers and financiers to find a solution for the property as a matter of urgency which will provide jobs and economic opportunity for Bermuda and the long neglected community of St. George’s.
The former Club Med hotel closed in 1988, and has not been used as a tourist resort since that time.
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- Proposals Invited For Old Club Med Property | Bernews.com | January 20, 2014
Oh ya. Just one of the many plp lies that will be revealed
Thank you Minister Crockwell for clarifying the issue,from a legal stand point there are those of us that do understand that not all details can be disclosed at this time,so with that said I would like Mr Hollis to stop trying to make it look like the P.L.P was trying to undermine the people of Bermuda and that Mr Hollis need not try and make Mr Wayne Furbert out to look like he was lying to the people of Bermuda.
You all say you have a higher class of integrity,lets see it because we are tired of the jackass syndrome.
so true. we asked for something different, now deliver. and that should stand for bloggers too…on both sides of the political fence.
@keturah, keep dreaming about the bloggers.
@Duane, who is “you all” that said they have a “higher class of integrity”? That sounds pretty self righteous to me and should be taken with a grain of salt.
Duane,changes like the wind….and all of his comments should be taken with a grain of salt.
Oh what a circus.
Promises, promises, promises…..
More like
Lies, Lies , and more damn lies……
NOW can we do what we need to in Bermuda to bring in INVESTMENT and TURN ON the engines of Tourism Development……??
Certainly Mr. Furbert was trying to find a solution……of that I am sure. But the lies come from his predecessor/s. Or if they wern’t outright lies they were indeed a complete manipulation of the truth…..
Year in year out Bazarian was “Breaking Ground”…….
In our house we call it “breaking wind”.
The fact that we (BERMUDA) is in such dire straits…..is due to a horrendous track record of Politics and labor tensions since 1981. BERMUDIANS killed the golden goose……
What part of losing Holiday Inn, Lowes, Club Med, Marriott, Trust House Forte, Sonesta let alone all the others: Ariel Sands, White Sands, Lantana, Munro Beaches, just to name a few, doesn’t anyone understand……
The competition has built hotels, casinos….yet we keep losing out…..and still think its just going to come back…..We gotta do it differently. We have to offer NEW attractions, new real estate policies, new work permit policy, add EVENT driven activities year round….. PLUS BERMUDIANS need to drive this revival !
Wow! Tony, when you read how many hotels and guest houses we have lost it really does stop you in your tracks. I agree that we will never compete with other tourist destinations until we start to embrace the tourism product fully. Bermudians need to take more pride in their island home and be prepared to sell it. We want the benefits of tourism but are we willing to work at like we did back in the old days? Investors want return on their investment.
Don’t forget…Bermudiana Hotel (now XL/Ace), Skytops (now Condo Development), Cabana (now rehab centre), Palmetto Bay Flatts (now condos) , Coral Island Hotel Flatts (now condos), Belmont (condos, Waterloo House (Office Building)and many others that I can’t remember right now.
Glencoe…
This deception started by Brown furring the run up to the 2007 election and again in 2012. I wouldn’t put it pass them to try it again in 2017. Some people never learn!
Where the hell is the lie and why is the “new” government still playing the dirty politic game? GET T F 2 WORK! It clearly says that the contract was indeed terminated in October 30 days after the breach notice was issued. 30 days after the Minister mistakenly said it was canceled when it was in breach and close to cancellation. Why on earth is this news? OBA doesn’t have anything to offer us but more dirty politics. You are the government now, you got what you wanted now just get to work please. Election is over.
Isnt this work ? They had to find out the full situation before going forward it’s called the proper way of business . Something PLP didn’t go by.
Your team lost and you’re still sucking lemons , it’s OK don’t cry , you can always cross the floor to the winning team.
oba death soon to come they made to many pre election promises people are not stupid
@ Mike Auxard, this isn’t the English Premier League. If the team I supported isn’t doing well I’m not going to suppprt them like a die hard fan, I’ll call it where I see it. #MANCHESTERUNITEDALLDAY
@ frank, it hasn’t even been a month, a bit premature don’t you think? Be real.
It’s news simply because when the PLP were having their town hall meeting in St Georges at the end of November (which the then premier attended)they talked about the development – not that the contract has been cancelled a whole month before, but that it was full steam ahead. That has now been shown to be false but they used that as effectively an election promise. You don’t, in any way, find that reprehensible?
Caught redhanded Flip Flop
Hand right in the cookie jar..
Led us right up the garden path..
You are so busted and now we know
We had to deceive, well well well
The Truth shall NOT set you free!
The Truth HUH , The OBA is rotten from the root to the fruit .
This coming from a staunch PLP syupporter..LOL, LMAO!! People that live is glass houses should not throw stones!
OK guys, we all knew the PLP at best were incompetant, at worst liars
Get past it and move to the future.
What is the OBA going to do with it now????
St Georges needs a hotel.
Perhaps an incentive would be for a Casino, 40% of revenues going to tax.
Perhaps a small cruise ship that brings guests to the Hotel, goes back for a second load, drops the second and takes back the first group.
Revolve all summer.
Weekend gamblers could fly in Friday, back Sunday. Transportation would be for east only, Airport to St Geo, not testing our infrastructure.
New Marina hopping,
Shops would be full,
Restaurants buzzing,
Kenny B happy.
Just thinking ……………….
bbbb
NO WAY can 40% casino revenues go to TAX…..
The Tax must start of low and then increase…..
MEGA $$$$ needed to build a proper casino….It s like any business, if you over TAX they will not invest…..
So start at 10% and increase after 3/5 years to 25%….
PLP Told many different stories regarding ths project
So, crockwell can’t say anything about it either. I wonder the eff why…
Oh that’s right, it’s probably under litigation!
Maybe because he wants to weed thru the Webb of lies first
Wayne Furbert lied and tried to cover his tracks by saying he misspoke. @ Judge Dread you are on here asking were is the lie.Do you read, listen,and look at the facts or are you opposed to the O.B.A so much that you would agree with lies when facts are in front of you.
I wonder how Wayne Furbert,can explain how he lied to all of us ?
This too shall not pass.
Hell is going to turn cold when the O.B.A opens up the books about the use of the tax payers money,contract distributions.
@ Common Senze why don’t you bring those ideas to the attention of Shawn Crockwell personally, after all this government is open to our ideas as well.
NOTE: OBA Discovery book
1. PLP govt had no plans of Building any hotel in St. George
2….(let’s wait)
Lets agree on one thing…The PLP Government was a joke, at best. The PLP currently is a comedy show, at best. The OBA has to make things happen and be challenged constructively on what they do…the PLP is an irrelevant side show and this reflective farce about Wayne Furbert and his cameo as the singing Tourism Minister is a waste of time, you would have to be an idiot to be surprised that Wayne misspoke about anything, his whole political career has been a mistake! No one should be surprised as the laughable record of the PLP former Government is revealed…have a knowing chuckle…moving on…
Interesting the a Govt that presided over a doubling of the country’s GDP is regarded as a joke.
Impartial maybe?
If they are responsible for BDA’s economic growth, then they also must assume responsibility for the economic turmoil, decline, stagnation that we are currently feeling now…
Agree?
@ Pro OBA posters: “Interesting the a Govt that presided over a doubling of the country’s GDP is regarded as a joke.”
That was quite an achievement, to double the GDP! However, at the same time, they increased the debt by so many multiples, my head spins.
Partisan, maybe?
“Interesting the a Govt that presided over a doubling of the country’s GDP is regarded as a joke.”
So are you saying the PLP should take credit for the various natural disasters that occurred over the last 10+ years that subsequently created capital demands in the insurance sector which in turn drove the explosive growth of our Reinsurance market whose solid foundation was previously laid as a direct result of the regulatory and legislative frameworks promulgated by earlier UBP Governments?
The same PLP who refused to take responsibility for their careless approach to fiscal good governance – choosing instead to blame the worldwide recession for our financial woes?
The PLP. Still lying to Bermudians even after December 2012.
Is that how you do it?
I hope to hell we have seen the last of wayne Furbert.
wayne furber is a joke,,,and a flip flopper,,,looking for a Pay Check,,,just like his friend randy,, in which who both would sway in any dirrection for the hope of a pay day,, join the rest of us thousands of unemployed
The Minister says there are aspects of the “contract termination” he can’t discuss. That’s a very different matter from discussing the contract itself (or simply releasing it to the public).
Soooo, Wayne Furbert didn’t misspeak when he misspoke. Then the government didn’t speak at all. Bazarian spoke like he didn’t know the lease was terminated. Or he didn’t speak at all. I’m confused.
Can you the NEW government of Bermuda now move on with DOING instead of fighting like school girls about who said this and when and to who please. I don’t care about that ALL I care about, and I think most of Bermudia will agree, is that St Georges needs a Hotel and now, so what are you going to do about that, bottom line. Less talk and more action please. It’s your call, but remember in about 4-5 years their will be another election.
Excuse me, but could we please have the on cue posters about openness and transparency? Where are you? What happened to you? When a PLP Minister said that something wasn’t fit for a proper to be discussed in the public domain, we had the following from you:
1. what do they have to hide?
2. call the Auditor General
2(a)call the Governor
3. they’re lying
4. they’re misleading the public
You get the drift. So, now Crock as Minister is forced to be responsible and respect the legalities of life in the hot seat and not a dickey burd from you all. So, it just proves that the keeping of secrets isn’t the issue, its who gets to keep them. The campaign of the last several years that ingrained this approach will not soon be forgotten so OBA, take notice; you will be held to the same standard of ridiculous scrutiny you imposed on the PLP, aided and abetted by your loyal media.
What Scrutiny?? No heads ever rolled, the PLP acted without consequences for their actions. They promised transparency but that was nothing more than a word, nothing became transparent if anything it got worse. What happened with the accountant general?? Put out to pasture so the PLP could start destroying files before the new Government got in??
The previous administration clearly deceived the public with regards to Hotel contracts. It looks like the current Government are having to pick up the pieces of the confusion that reigned in the back ground of the PLP’s tourism operation.
Did you read what the current Minister of Finance had to say about the Accountant General? Until you do then refrain from defending your Government.
This is why you need an independent authority. The PLP toyed with the public perception of tourism to deceive us that things were better than they were. We now see as the bs is unraveled the true colors of the previous government. Deception and window dressing, while behind the scenes confusion reigned.
@ Hmmmmm: Clearly you cannot see the difference between releasing the primary information – that the contract was terminated – and releasing the details of the termination because of legalities.
Also clearly, Mr. Furbert used the correct term when he said he “mis-spoke”. In other words he spoke before the 30 days grace period was up, during which Bazarian had the option to make good (or at least begin) on his side of the contract. The problem as I see it, is that no further information was provided by the then-government as to whether the contract was or was not still in force. We, the public, did not need all the fine print, the legalities if you will, but it would have been ‘honest and transparent’ if we were at least informed that the contract had actually terminated.
There are lies of commission (speaking untruths) and lies of omission (not revealing pertinent information). Leaving us in the dark, not answering legitimate questions about an issue that remains important to Bermuda, not just St. Georges, amounts to a lie of omission.
With respect, your revisionist reasonableness is unconvincing. You and many others were never satisfied with any answer given by the previous government and so to suggest that you would’ve been, assumes that I cannot read, understand or remember. Your suggestion that NOW you are not interested in the fine print is laughable because that is what you and the rest have always demanded. Now your new man-about-town tells you there are some things you don’t need to know and its just peachy.Many of us will remember you and your arguments before December 17th so prepare to defend them regularly.
In a heartbeat. The fundamental problem pre election, was that Government preached openness while blatently lying. We saw it over and over, with hotel developments, relationships with the BIU, tendering, unaudited accounts and so on. Such was the litany of failure and deception, we can only guess just how big the mess really is and it’s going to take a while to unravel.
I absolutely will hold the OBA accountable.
Oh you mean that there was some legal clause in the agreement that stipulated that the Government must lie when speaking about whether or not the lease agreement was still in place or has been cancelled?
So the fact that the PLP lied (the issue that you seem to be intentionally avioding) or “mis-spoke” when addressing the public in this matter means nothing to you?
Why don’t you, for once, actually address the point being argued here? If you need another reminder it is your precious Party that felt the need to decevive the Bermudian public once again. Typical and predictable (and that goes for your responses as well).
Here’s a link of the lie if your memory needs to be refreshed.
http://bernews.com/2012/09/park-hyatt-resort-agreement-terminated/
Nothing wrong with my memory. There’s very little daylight between what Crockwell and Furbert have said. Be reminded of one thing: Just because your Government won’t be asked the same questions as the last Government doesn’t make them more open or transparent. It just makes them lucky and proves what most of us already know about this media environment and who it is bent on propping up. I’m still waiting for someone to ask how much the baseball player’s visit cost. Even you must admit you would’ve wanted to know the answer on December 16th.
“There’s very little daylight between what Crockwell and Furbert have said.”
Mr. Furbert retracted his statement and said that the contract was not cancelled a day after he admitted on ZBM that the agreement was terminated.
Mr. Crockwell, upon his appointment as Min. of Tourism, confirmed that the previous administration cancelled the lease effective late summer 2012. Mr. Furbert confirmed this yesterday.
So explain to me how there is “very little daylight” between a blatant lie/deception and simple confirmation as to what really happened by someone who was not involved during the whole process and only became aware of it subsquent to being elected 3 weeks ago?
And what baseball player are you rambling on about?
@ Hmmmm: “You and many others were never satisfied with any answer given by the previous government”: How would you know we were never satisfied, since NO answers were given to many of the questions we had. This one was a case in point. After Mr. Furbert “mis-spoke”, no further information was forthcoming.
In addition, I did not say I was not interested in the fine print, just that we should have been given the primary piece of information – that the contract was over. Plus, Mr. Crockwell didn’t say we didn’t need to know, but that, at this stage since there is litigation, he is legally prevented from providing any further information. He did however let us know (a) that the contract was terminated; (b) when it was terminated; (C) that there was a 30 day grace period which Mr. Bazarian did not avail himself of; and (d) that the issue is under litigation, so we know there is more information to come, which I am betting Mr. Crockwell will be just as forthcoming with when the time comes.
PS: I don’t mind defending anything I have said in the past. It will just allow me to make my points again, probably even more forcefully and with added information (ammunition?). Bring it on.
@ Bermudian: “Can you the NEW government of Bermuda now move on with DOING instead of fighting like school girls about who said this and when and to who please…but remember in about 4-5 years their will be another election.”
This is not a fight. This is a revelation of something that went wrong. There was so much propaganda, spin, speculation and diversion last year that it has become important to many members of the public that we get that facts.
Don’t get tired yet. It is probably just beginning.
It is important not just to be doing, but to be doing what is right and what works in the best interest of the country as a whole. For that to happen, things need to be thought through in the light of all the facts, which, until after the election, were not only NOT revealed, but in certain instances, appear to have been deliberately concealed.
Might as well go on stage and sing “the best is yet to come “and (badly moonwalk) of stage at least we can all wet ourselves laughing ! We can believe that lol
the only winners in all this disgusting dimise of Bermuda are the plp members,families and friends..and the rest of us the plp govt has thrown us under the BUS..debt up to our a####,broken tourism trade,unemployment at its highest, the criminals they have created and now robbing us blind our only pleasure our TVs,our computers,food,our privacy.,not to mention our delapidated condition of our environment..it is in a shamble..The plp can now take their long vacays with their pension and medical benefits intact…and we are left to sort out long term miseries..THESE ppl has no integrity nor love for Bermuda.Our foreign staff have more concern for Bermuda than these ruthless and self aggrandisers..
how can any group of ppl(plp) inflict so much damage in such a short time(14yrs) in an island that has a 400 years existence..historically the island had overcome destructive hurricanes,world econ.depression in 1929,two world wars,wintry storms and recent econ.world problems?????????