Royal Oasis payouts now focus of Department of Labour report

By LEDEDRA MARCHE

Senior FN Reporter

The Ministry of Finance is awaiting a report from the Department of Labour regarding the legitimacy of complaints made by dozens of former Royal Oasis workers following the final pay-out exercise, Minister of State for Finance Zhivargo Laing revealed yesterday.

Government paid out $1.4 million to the remainder of the former employees of Crowne Plaza Golf Resort and Casino at the Royal Oasis who were owed redundancy money. Another 131 who had not received anything were also paid.

The resort closed its doors back in 2004 following Hurricane Frances, placing over 1,000 on the unemployment line. It was sold last year to the Harcourt Development Company for $33 million.

In 2005, the former government paid out $4.7 million of the $6.12 million which Driftwood Freeport Ltd. had owed.

A reported 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.

Just before the December payout, Government sought and received approval from Parliament for $8 million. Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham revealed that $4 million of emergency funds was for the Royal Oasis workers and an additional $4 million was for the non-matched marking support to Harcourt Development (Bahamas) Ltd.

However, since what government said was to be the final payout to the displaced workers back in early December, close to 100 people have come forward to say their calculations were not right or that they had not received anything.

BHCAWU Second Vice President Lionel Morley had also called on the government to correct the alleged inconsistencies in payouts to a number of its members receiving minimum wage.

Those in the group include minimum wage workers such as bartenders, security officers, waiters and waitresses and maids.

Minister Laing told The Freeport News yesterday that the process was winding down as Labour officials were finalizing the querries.

"They did an exercise where they were questioning people as to what they said was the discrepancy between what they perhaps got or did not get," he explained.

"We now have to determine whether there is any legitimacy about what they claim and to see the extent to which therefore we have to pay from these set of monies that were allocated for that. That's the exercise that has to be done. But that has to be based on a report, submitted and completed which the Department of Labour was doing."

According to Laing, the interview process is completed and the department was allowed sufficient time to conduct the interviews.

"We didn't give them a time frame because if you did that they would have rushed it and missed out a few people, but they spoke to who all had queries and so they are now finalizing that report," he stated.

Once that is done and is forwarded to his ministry, the matter will be dealt with accordingly, Laing explained, adding that the process cannot be open-ended.

At the closure of the hotel, Lehman Brothers, the former owners had owed severance pay to the workers, to government, $26.2 million in liability, including $13 million in casino taxes, $750,000 in Bahamas Immigration fees, hundreds of thousands more to a number of other agencies and $3.1 million to the Bah-amas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union Pension fund.

© 2008 The Freeport News