By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

FOREIGN Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell yesterday blasted Baha Mar CEO Sarkis Izmirlian for recently suggesting that he and the government were “fighting” over the $3.5b Cable Beach property.

He said that the Baha Mar CEO is not in the same league as Prime Minister Perry Christie to suggest he is fighting with the government over the resort.

Mr Mitchell also dismissed Mr Izmirlian for blasting the government’s decision not to pay the resort’s foreign workers their salaries on payday last week. Mr Mitchell said the payment of the resort’s expatriate employees is “not our issue, that’s his issue.”

The Fox Hill MP also defended his decision to remind Mr Izmirlian that his permanent residency status could be revoked, maintaining that Mr Izmirlian “has a problem knowing how to conduct himself in this country.”

Further dismissing the Free National Movement’s recent criticisms of his statements as “laughable,” Mr Mitchell also called for the FNM to either side with the people of the Bahamas or Mr Izmirlian.

His statements came during his contribution to the House of Assembly’s debate on a resolution to increase minimum wage. At one point during his speech, Mr Mitchell broke out into song; singing lines from the popular Bob Marley tune “Redemption Song.”

Earlier this week Mr Mitchell cautioned the resort CEO “to consider making the appropriate steps to live elsewhere” if he cannot conform with the expected conduct of “economic guests.” Mr Mitchell also chastised Mr Izmirlian’s recent “attack” on Mr Christie.

And last week, while speaking at the United Nations, Mr Mitchell declared that there was an “existential” threat to the governance of the country due to the deliberate and improper political interference of a “single investor”.

Criticised

His statements were criticised by the FNM’s Deputy Leader Peter Turnquest as well as Shadow Immigration Minister Hubert Chipman, who said Mr Mitchell’s “belligerent language” has harmed this country’s reputation.

Yesterday, however, Mr Mitchell dubbed their statements as being the “language of slavery.”

“The fact is this is a commercial dispute of an investor who is in our country, and that man has filed an action in the courts of the US which would have allowed him to walk away from the debts in this country that he legitimately owes. The Bahamas government would have been abdicating its responsibility to the Bahamian people if it had not intervened to do what is done.

“There are also certain rules and regulations and norms which an economic guest has to abide by, and he has to stand by it. Now the FNM has to decide whether they stand up for the people of the Bahamas, or whether they’re with someone who is acting against the interest of the Bahamas. It’s as simple as that.”

On Tuesday, in a memo sent to Baha Mar employees, Mr Izmirlian said in his 13 years working on the Baha Mar project, he “never imagined” he would be “fighting” with the government over the $3.5b property.

Lamenting that the project has “now been usurped for political reasons,” Mr Izmirlian also hit out at the government’s “deplorable” decision not to pay the resort’s foreign workers their salaries on payday last week.

However, Mr Mitchell said the “fight is only in his imagination.”

“I say it in another context: he and Perry Christie are not company, and he should get that in his mind,” he said.

Last week it was announced that the government was not going to pay Baha Mar’s expatriate workers their salaries, although it has paid the property’s Bahamian workers for three pay periods since the resort filed for bankruptcy on June 29. Bahamian employees are paid bi-weekly while expat workers are paid monthly.

Payments

Regarding Mr Izmirlian’s subsequent criticism of the government’s decision, Mr Mitchell said: “The payments were made to the staff. What he does with the people who are not Bahamians, that’s not our issue, that’s his issue.”

He added: “And remember that he owes the debt to the employees. The government only agreed for a limited period to provide him with the liquidity, because he is unable to pay his debts.”

Baha Mar had received the green light from a US judge to access debtor in possession financing to pay staff while it was undergoing bankruptcy. However, this order had to be approved by the Supreme Court of the Bahamas. The application was denied in this jurisdiction, but Baha Mar has been granted leave to appeal.

On Friday, the Supreme Court adjourned a hearing into the government’s winding up petition against the resort until August 19.