10172023 BUSINESS AND FEATURES

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business@tribunemedia.net

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2023

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Balmoral Club’s hotel given history preserver’s go-ahead By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net REGULATORS responsible for preserving The Bahamas’ historic buildings have given the go-ahead for the Balmoral Club’s 50-unit condo hotel expansion at the site of the existing clubhouse. Shavanna Dean, senior assistant preservation architect with the Antiquities, Monuments and

Museums Corporation (AMMC), in a September 7, 2023, report said that even though plans for the eightstorey structure were not an ideal fit with criteria governing “additions to historic buildings” they were “acceptable” given site conditions. Her evaluation, produced after an August 23, 2023, site visit to the Sanford Drive-based community, revealed that the Balmoral Club’s clubhouse is “currently listed on the National Register of Historic

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BALMORAL CONDO HOTEL

Resources, and it has been on the listing since its inception”. Hence the need to get the AMMC’s approval for the condo hotel, which will be located “at the northeast portion” of the same clubhouse. “Additions to historic buildings are not uncommon,” Ms Dean wrote in her report. “However, existing structures and new additions should be compatible. “Compatibility is successfully accomplished by the

careful consideration of design principles such as the building’s setback, height, orientation, materials, scale, colour, proportion, roof shapes, rhythm, details and ornamentation, massing and reversibility.” Assessing the Balmoral Club’s plans on this basis, she added that the 50-unit condo hotel’s location “is currently away from the front facade” of Balmoral’s clubhouse.

Atlantis unveils petition opposing Wendy’s plan By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net ATLANTIS yesterday urged planning authorities to “not subject Paradise Island to indiscriminate development” as it unveiled a 100-strong petition opposing the Wendy’s and Marco’s Pizza restaurant project. Vaughn Roberts, the mega resort’s senior vice-president of government affairs and special projects, in a lastminute intervention hours before last night’s Town Planning Committee consultation on the fast-food proposal again reiterated

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The planning authority last night deferred its decision on whether or not to grant site plan approval to the Wendy’s and Marco’s Pizza project until next week Tuesday, after hearing spirited arguments for and against the development. The Atlantis letter, dated October 16, 2023, also attached a 100-strong petition - compiled over a four-day period in April 2022 - featuring signatures from persons described as “individual property owners” who were objecting to the conversion of Paradise Island’s former Scotiabank branch into a Wendy’s and Marco’s Pizza destination.

THE OPPOSITION’S leader yesterday described the Government’s longpromised release of details on $140m worth of contract awards as “half-baked and incomplete” plus noncompliant with the law. Michael Pintard, in a statement yesterday, argued that the Davis administration “never fails to underwhelm and underperform” as he argued that the report on 843 contracts issued via the Go Bonfire

online procurement portal, in the ten months to end-June 2023, does not comply with the level of reporting and disclosure required by the new Public Procurement Act. In particular, the FNM leader charged that none of the contracts awarded by the Government in the year to September 1, 2022, have been revealed to the Bahamian public. And he argued that the information disclosed contains no contracts awarded by state-owned enterprises (SOEs), even though the Act’s section 75 requires

that the Government publish a summary of deals issued by “public bodies” in an annual report. “First, we have no information provided on any procurement from September 2021 to August 2022, although the Government still has a legal obligation to provide this information consistent with the law in force at that time,” Mr Pintard asserted. “Second, it would seem that none of the contracts awarded by state-owned enterprises such as NIB, the Public Hospitals Authority, Water &

VAUGHN ROBERTS An inspection of the petition revealed that some of the signatories are top-level executives at the resorts leading the campaign against the Town Planning Committee granting site plan approval. They include Audrey Oswell, Atlantis’ president and managing director, plus the resort’s in-house legal counsel, Giselle Pyfrom. Other notable names are Comfort Suites chief, William Naughton, who

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Sewerage or the University of The Bahamas are included in the report. This information is required by the Public Procurement Act 2023 in Section 75 (2) (g). “Third, there are clear examples of significant contracts that were awarded during the reporting period that were simply left out in the report. One such example is the award of a multi-million dollar and multi-year contract by the Ministry of Transport for navigational aids

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Terminal’s $71.3m deal ‘heralds new day’ in GB By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net INVESTMENT project announcements are “certainly heralding a new day” for Grand Bahama after the South Riding Point terminal’s new owner yesterday unveiled a $71.3m financing deal to restart operations. James Carey, the Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce president,

hailed Liwathon Group’s confirmation of the loan guarantee from the US Export-Import Bank as “great news” and added that if “we can knit all these things together we will be in for a very bright future in Grand Bahama”. Liwathon’s statement, released yesterday just after Grand Bahama Shipyard last week confirmed its investment in two new dry docks will proceed, said the $71.3m

loan guarantee “will support the relaunch of the 1.1 million cubic metres South Riding Point energy storage terminal in The Bahamas later this year” following its prior acquisition from Equinor. No specific dates were provided, but the logistics operator that runs four petroleum storage facilities in Estonia described the loan guarantee as “one of the largest financial commitments” by the US

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Procurement chief pledges greater reporting frequency

Opposition leader slams ‘half-baked’ contract award report By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

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Export-Import Bank for a project within Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations. “This milestone underscores our commitment to operational excellence and strategic asset growth,” said a spokesperson for Liwathon Group, which owns more than 2.1m cubic metres of storage space across its business. “We are committed to providing secure, reliable

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By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE GOVERNMENT’S chief procurement official yesterday disclosed that the frequency of contract award reporting will ultimately increase to every 60 days, adding that full compliance is “going to take some time”. Carl Oliver, the acting chief procurement officer, told Tribune Business that the increased openness and transparency created by the current Public Procurement Act and its predecessor requires “a change of mindset” that all ministries, departments and agencies are still adapting to. Pointing out that there was zero mandated reporting of government contracts to the Bahamian people prior to the first Act’s implementation on September 1, 2021, he conceded that there were “some little challenges” in getting all agencies to use the Go

t 8BSOT GVMM DPNQMJBODF AHPJOH UP UBLF TPNF UJNF Bonfire online portal for the launch, bidding process and awarding of procurement deals. Speaking as Michael Pintard, the Opposition’s leader, slammed the Davis administration’s initial disclosures as “half-baked and incomplete” (see other article on Page 1B), Mr Oliver told this newspaper that all parts of government are “on board” with the need to comply with the Act and new procurement system. He added that it was now critical to increase training so that all agencies and relevant staff know what to do. The Government, at around 10pm on Sunday night, finally released

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