Caribbean & Central America - November 2016 (ISSN 1741-4458)

*** JAMAICA LOCAL ELECTIONS. On 28 November, Jamaica will hold municipal elections in the first electoral test since the People’s National Party (PNP) lost national power to the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in February. The PNP is hoping to retain 13 parish councils and the Portmore municipality.

*** TRINIDAD CABINET RESHUFFLE. On 31 October, Trinidad & Tobago’s Prime Minister Keith Rowley reshuffled his cabinet for the first time since being elected PM in September 2015. He dismissed two senior Cabinet members, the Energy and Energy Industries Minister Nicole Olivierre and the Public Utilities Minister Brigadier General Ancil Antoine. Minister of the People Dr Glenn Ramadharsingh was also dismissed, for “inappropriate touching” of a female Caribbean Airlines flight attendant.

Franklyn Khan, formerly Minister of Rural Development and Local Government, is the new Minister of Energy and Energy Industries. Fitzgerald Hinds, formerly Minister of Works and Transport, is the new Minister of Public Utilities. Kazim Hosein has been appointed a senator and becomes Minister of Rural Development and Local Government, and Senator Rohan Sinanan is the new Minister of Works and Transport.

*** PROGRESS ON BAHAMAS MEGA RESORT. In mid-October, the government revealed that a new owner had been found for the troubled Baha Mar mega resort. On 17 October, the government issued a statement saying: “The assets of Baha Mar have been acquired by Perfect Luck Holdings Ltd.” Perfect Luck is a Hong Kong registered company.

The statement from the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) added: “The company may sell the resort to whomever it wishes, subject to the proposed purchaser being acceptable to the government and other bodies performing their public function.” Most importantly, the OPM statement added that “remobilization has commenced” and that “a substantial fund has been established by CEXIM [China Export-Import Bank – the original backer of the project] for the payment of creditors’ claims, and former Baha Mar Bahamian employees are already being paid”.

A few days after this announcement, on 27 October, a Hong Kong firm called Chow Tai Fook Enterprises Limited (CTFE) announced that it had “entered into negotiations in connection with the ownership of Baha Mar”. CFTE is a Hong Kong-based conglomerate owned and controlled by the Cheng Family. The principal activities of CTFE and the Cheng family include property holding and development, hotel investment and management, jewellery retailing, department stores, transportation and infrastructure investment.

All this sparked immediate controversy, with former Baha Mar Director Dionisio D’Aguilar saying that the conglomerate was an unsuitable investor because it had been refused casino licenses in two US states, and because of its alleged “well-documented connection to organised crime in Asia”. The reference to organised-crime connections is thought to refer to the Cheng family’s links to billionaire Stanley Ho through its stake in Macau group STDM. Ho and his associates are said to have been blocked from expanding their gaming interests into Australia and Canada because of alleged associations with Chinese triad gangs in Macau.

CTFE responded by saying: “CTFE has never applied for a casino license in the US, and a consortium including CTFE has just been approved for the granting of a casino license in Queensland, Australia…In addition, the Cheng family’s role in the Macau casino is strictly as an investor with no involvement in day-to-day management of the casino or oversight of the gaming industry in Macau…There will be no affiliation on this project with STDM.”