In his budget presentation in the House of Assembly on Wednesday, June 7, Prime Minister Perry Christie appeared to have no reservations at all in announcing that a buyer had been found for the Royal Oasis resort in Freeport, which has been closed since September of 2004 after sustaining serious damages from Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne.

"Mr. Speaker, as we speak, the representatives of the government are closing a meeting in New York, and at that meeting, Lehman Brothers and the government have agreed to a purchaser for the Royal Oasis," the Prime Minister assured members of the House.

Driftwood Freeport Ltd., which owns the Royal Oasis, was financed by Lehman Brothers, so obviously whatever decision they reached with regard to the sale of the hotel would have been binding. It has been almost three weeks since the Prime Minister made that declaration, but the buyer of the hotel still has not yet been officially identified.

There is speculation that the prospective buyer is Harcourt Development, the Dublin, Ireland-based company, which has more than 40 years expertise developing office, industrial, retail, leisure and residential projects in Ireland, the United Kingdom and other countries. Harcourt also owns and operates one of the largest chains of shopping centres in Ireland and the famous Carlisle Bay resort in Antigua.

Harcourt Development, of course, is the same company that was rumoured to be very close to purchasing the Royal Oasis more than a year ago, and it was even reported that it had signed an agreement in principle with Lehman Brothers to do so.

An indication that the most recent negotiations with Harcourt Development may have hit a snag, however, came during the Prime Minister's wrap-up of the budget debate when he said that there were two buyers interested in the Royal Oasis property. But if a buyer had been found, as the Prime Minister indicated two weeks earlier in presenting the budget, then clearly something must have happened in the interim to make the Prime Minister less certain of this when he wrapped up the debate last week Wednesday. Did the negotiators for Harcourt make some new demands that the Government could not agree with?

There were reports that Driftwood had placed a $29 million price tag on the Royal Oasis, but the prospective buyer at the time was only willing to pay $24 million, and the $5 million difference was said to be the reason why negotiations had stalled. If this is still what's holding up the sale of the Royal Oasis, then obviously the Government should give serious consideration to making up the difference itself.

When it was operational, the Royal Oasis represented one-third of Grand Bahama's hotel rooms, and when it closed more than 1,200 employees were displaced. Therefore, not only is the sale of the Royal Oasis absolutely crucial to the revival of tourism in Grand Bahama, but also to alleviating the island's serious unemployment problem.

With a general election due within less than a year, these are certainly two goals the Government should want to see accomplished, if it hopes to maintain or improve on the political gains it made in Grand Bahama in the last general election.