By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Andros Chamber of Commerce’s president yesterday voiced disappointment that the North Andros mining and land reclamation proposed by Cameron Symonette and his business partner was rejected by the Government.

Darin Bethel told Tribune Business that the Davis administration’s decision showed it was “not a ‘New Day’” as it has frequently asserted. “This is the same old political tactics that have kept our communities down over the years,” he charged. “A fully-funded project that invests in Andros deserves to be heard and given fair and public consideration. Public input should have been pertinent.” 

Phylicia Hanna-Woods, the Government’s director of investments, in an August 30 letter to Bryan Glinton, attorney and partner at the Glinton, Sweeting & O’Brien law firm, said the Government’s National Economic Council (NEC) has “refused the application to establish an inland aggregate mining operation on Crown Land situated on the northern part of Andros island”.

“This is disappointing for the community and the business community, and without even a Town Meeting and getting the support of the community,” Mr Bethel responded. “They rejected it without even a voice from the community. I am shocked that they didn’t want to seek the support and views of the local community.

“For the business community, we have people that are depending on opportunities for new investment to come in and help support them, because right now a lot of new entrepreneurs have invested in Andros. We need more revenue and I can’t see the Government turning it down without even giving an opportunity for the locals to voice their support.” 

Mr Symonette and his business partner, Ted Baker, were spearheading the project.  Mr Bethel added: “It seems to me that who is investing in the project is more critical than who is benefiting from the investment. Because I have been hearing lately a lot of arguments around the Symonette’s, but I see no better way for the Symonette’s to spread their wealth other than to create employment.

“That is all they are seeking to do. The Symonettes gained their wealth here in the country, and if they were to close down all of their businesses across this country the Government cannot sustain it. So I don’t see what this issue is with the Symonette’s. They are investors. They are looking to invest, and they are looking to take risks with their money and our community needs it.” 

The proposal, which was first presented to the Minnis Cabinet, is understood to have been shown to the Davis administration at end-January and Bahamas Materials Company’s principals have endured a more than seven-month wait to learn whether it will be given approval in principle so they can begin the process of obtaining its environmental approvals.

Sources familiar with the project, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to do so, said it had planned to create 163 direct jobs in Andros along with numerous spin-off entrepreneurial opportunities. They dismissed any climate change concerns, saying the project would be located on “fallow” land in the shape of the Water & Sewerage Corporation’s 5,200 acre wellfields that have been inundated with seawater from past hurricanes.

Bahamas Materials hoped to mine the site for calcium carbonate (limestone). The extracted rock would have then been crushed and screened at a purpose-built plant before being exported by sea to either Florida or New Providence for use by the construction industry in a variety of applications.

However, the plans went beyond mere aggregate mining to explore how the land could be reclaimed, and repurposed, for other productive use such as real estate once all the rock has been extracted. Bahamas Materials Company is proposing a corporate structure where a subsidiary, Morgan’s Bluff Development Group Ltd, owned by local residents would control/own the land and lease portions to it for mining via a phased approach.

“The control remains with the Government and the people,” a source said. “This project will pay royalties, it will pay taxes and it will pay Business Licence fees.”