By LEDEDRA MARCHE

Senior FN Reporter

lededra@nasguard.com

Government will settle the millions of dollars owed to former workers of Royal Oasis resort and payment could begin in a few days, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham revealed Saturday.

The nation's chief was in Grand Bahama for several engagements and addressed Free National Movement (FNM) supporters Saturday at a town meeting at the Mary, Star of the Sea Hall when he made the initial announcement.

"The government is going to cause to be paid (to) the workers at the Royal Oasis Hotel the balance of their redundancy payment entitlements," the prime minister told members of the media at a press conference afterwards.

The Prime Minister said government has a list and is making that list available to Members of Parliament in Grand Bahama.

"I'm making available to the Members of Parliament here, a list of all the names which the government has, and I am asking them to seek to determine whether or not there are any persons who should have been on that list who are not on that list," he said. "I have indicated to them that we are going to close the government's list at 5:00 p.m. on Monday (today) and so if they have additional names and circumstance we'd be grateful if they would make them available to ourselves."

Prime Minister Ingraham revealed that the same will be done with the BHCAWU.

"Kwasi Thompson's father (Attorney James Thompson) represents the Union. We are making available a copy of the list to him because he wrote to my office as the lawyer on behalf of the workers, to see the extent to what we have is consistent with those he is representing and then we would be in a position to know that we have taken account of the whole thing," he said.

Government, he said, is taking steps to make the reality of the payout as soon as possible.

"We have a number of all the persons and their names and we propose to cause them to be paid next week or as soon thereafter as it is possible to administratively deal with the matter."

Questioned on what preventative measures government intends to put in place for potential investors who may be thinking about skipping town on abandoning their duties, the prime minister said there is no perfect solutions.

"There are no perfect solutions to anything in this world. Governments that find it necessary to put in place labour laws and constraints that are seen as hindrances to development end up not getting development," he said.

"Sometimes you end up with a bad situation, but you must not allow one bad situation to cause you to put in place rules that stymie development and growth for the entire development for the entire economy."

He pointed out, however, that there were adequate warning signs when it came to the Royal Oasis and the government sought not to take steps to deal with the matter.

"They were indebted to the government for more than $13 million for casino taxes, they owe Immigration more than $750,000, they owed Customs, they owed National Insurance, they owed the Union pension fund, they were bouncing cheques for employees' deductions for their wages to pay their loan payments and this was going on for a considerable period of time.

"The government felt at the time that it was doing its utmost, I suppose, to preserve jobs to the maximum extent and eventually the bottom of the bucket fell out," he said.

Noting that the government is not blaming anyone for the Royal Oasis debacle, the FNM leader said a full statement of the facts will be made later in Parliament.

Additionally, Prime Minister Ingraham said government will not be collecting its $13 million in casino taxes, its $750,000 in immigration fees, nor its many other hundreds of thousands owed to other agencies of the government.

Those dollars will be gone forever from the public's point of view, he said. As for the BHCAWU pension fund, the nation's chief said he is led to believe that the pension fund has enough money in it to pay all the persons who are entitled to receive pension benefits.

It is believed, however, that the union pension fund is owed more than $3 million.

"The monies we are going to be paying out to all of these workers over the coming days and/or weeks: if you want to take a hard business/governmental decision you may say the government has no obligation to do so. But Freeport requires a special focus by the government and we are going to fix Freeport. The only thing I ask Freeport is that when we fix it this time, don't let others come and mess it up again," he said.

Driftwood Freeport Limited, the then owners of the Crowne Plaza Golf Resort and Casino at the Royal Oasis, shut down the property in mid-September of 2004 following hurricane Frances and left millions of dollars in debts, including redundancy pay to hundreds of employees.

Driftwood blamed the move on grave losses incurred from the hurricane.

The closure of the 427-acre resort property — the second largest on the island, next to the Westin and Sheraton Grand Bahama Island at Our Lucaya Beach and Golf Resort — has had a domino effect on the economy of Grand Bahama and forced the fall-out of several businesses in the neighbouring International Bazaar and elsewhere on the island.

Chief among them is the livelihood of the 1,300-plus workers who were displaced and their lives left in limbo with no redundancy pay or pension money.

A reported 330 of the 1,300 laid off workers were re-employed to assist with the refurbishment of the resort and the security crew and the golf shop personnel were also kept on staff, but they were later released.

In mid-January, with no word of their re-employment or the reopening of the resort after weeks of repeated queries, dozens of out-of-work men and women who attended a special meeting decided to take matters into their own hands.

Officials of the Bahamas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU) led the group of about 200-plus Royal Oasis employees to the front lawn of the resort property in a protest for justice, marching from the Bahamas Public Service Union Hall to the resort with placards.

Their call on government was soon joined by the Grand Bahama Human Rights Association, the Bahamas Gaming and Allied Workers and other trade unions.

Before long, the group had grown to 300 and the protest drawn out for three weeks and the Department of Social Services had stepped in for a stint to provide the displaced workers with food assistance.

In May 2005, the former government paid out an unprecedented $5 million of the $6.12 million owed in redundancy pay to 900 displaced workers by Driftwood.

The remaining $1.12 million, which government said needed the approval of Parliament, was expected to have been paid "in short order."

Some 650 workers whose total payout package amounted to under $11,000 or less were paid in full and those entitled to more than $11,000 received 50 percent.

Several of them have yet to be paid a dime having refused the payout because they were unsatisfied with the amount purportedly owed, vowing to take their plight to the Department of Labour.

Government also intervened with the mortgagee of the property to pay some $2.5 million in outstanding National Insurance contributions for Driftwood's employees.

Recently, a group of former Royal Oasis workers concerned over the long delay and after an off-again, on-again talk of a sale, banded together, spoke up for their rights and wrote to prime minister Ingraham with some 200 names attached for his help.

MEET THE PRESS — Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham speaks to the media at the Office of the Prime Minister in Grand Bahama on Saturday, October 27, flanked by Cabinet Ministers, MPs and Senators. Seated from left: Eight Mile Rock MP Vernae Grant, Minister of Health and Social Development Dr. Hubert Minnis, Senator and Parliamentary Secretary Kay Forbes-Smith, Prime Minister Ingraham, Pineridge MP Kwasi Thompson, and Minister of State for Social Development Loretta Butler-Turner.

(Photo by JENNEVA RUSSELL)