By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A prominent attorney has questioned whether the Government’s refusal to engage with a Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) licensee group signals it has “no plan” for Freeport’s future development.

Kirk Antoni, the Cafferata & Company partner, who is among those leading efforts to organise the GBPA’s 3,000-plus licensees in a bid to safeguard their rights amid the quasi-governmental authority’s battle with the Government, told Tribune Business he was not “surprised” at the latter’s refusal to recognise the Freeport Licensees Association (FLA) and its statement.

“The FLA statement was a collaborative effort of several licensees and approved by myself. I am not surprised that the PM will not respond to the statement. He won’t respond to a question and answer session in the House to questions provided to him in October 2023 by the leader of the Opposition. One must ask why,” Mr Antoni said, referring to last week’s exchanges between Philip Davis KC and Michael Pintard.

Questioning whether this is “what we can expect when his government takes control of Freeport”, the veteran attorney added: “That is just one of the concerns of the FLA.....

“The FLA is concerned about the future of Freeport. That is why we are encouraging the Government and the Port to get together and resolve their issues. The Port has met with us and advised us of their plans for Freeport. The Government refuses to do so. Why? Is it because they have no plan?”

Mr Antoni was responding to the statement by Latrae Rahming, communications director for Philip Davis KC, who replied to the FLA’s statement on the Prime Minister’s Monday speech by saying the Government does not recognise “unsigned statements”.

However, Magnus Alnebeck, the Pelican Bay resort’s general manager, struck a more conciliatory tone. He told Tribune Business that the Prime Minister’s assertion that the Government does not want to take over the GBPA, and his pledge that licensee rights, tax benefits and other concessions enjoyed under the Hawksbill Creek Agreement will not be “watered down”, leaves the “door open” for co-operation.

“I hope that the Government and GBPA can quickly resolve the matter of what government believes they are owed and that it does not drag through the courts,” the hotel chief said. “I believe the Prime Minister in his speech said that government does not want to take over the GBPA, and that there will be be no ‘watering down’ of any rights that licensees have.

“That leaves the door open for the residents/licensees of Freeport to shape the future in partnership with the Government and the GBPA.”

Tribune Business understands the Government has taken the position there is little purpose in engaging the Freeport Licensees Association in the belief that it does not represent the views or stance of most licensees over the GBPA dispute while also viewing its members as not being “true power brokers”.

However, the irony of the Government’s stance is that the Prime Minister last week conceded the importance of the GBPA licensees by admitting that any major changes to the Hawksbill Creek Agreement, Freeport’s founding treaty, require the approval of four-fifths or 80 percent of their number. This includes potentially devolving the GBPA’s quasi-governmental powers to a local government-type authority.

Mr Davis, in making the case for the Government’s demand that the GBPA pay it $357m to cover its Freeport public spending over and above tax revenues generated by the city between 2018-2022, argued that the Port and its owners, the Hayward and St George families, never sought licensee approval to sell-off its private, profit-making assets via their transfer to the Port Group Ltd subsidiary.

“I don’t know what they did with all the money they made from selling off all those companies, but I know what they didn’t do: They didn’t invest in the climate-resilient infrastructure Grand Bahama needs in this new climate era of intensifying hurricanes,” the Prime Minister argued last Monday.

“And speaking of selling off these critical subsidiaries….I don’t recall them asking those of you who are licensees for your consent? Yet any material change to the Hawksbill Creek Agreement requires four-fifths approval of licensees.

“They’re leaning on you, collecting your fees, but they’ve sold off the assets that would allow them to bring the kind of game-changing investments that are so overdue in Grand Bahama. They haven’t kept their obligations to you, and they haven’t kept them to Bahamian taxpayers more broadly either.”

Fred Mitchell, the PLP chairman and minister of foreign affairs, who has been the major public champion of the Government’s policy towards the GBPA, revived previous assertions that the Freeport Licensees Association is merely a front or cover for Freeport’s quasi-governmental authority although he provided no hard evidence to support this.

Arguing that the “so-called licensees association ought to be ashamed of themselves; they have let the side down”, Mr Mitchell blasted both its and the GBPA’s responses to the Prime Minister as “sickening, weak-kneed and impertinent”.

“This evening, two unfortunate, ill-conceived, misdirected statements were issued out of Grand Bahama responding in a combative manner to the Prime Minister’s address to the Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce,” he slammed.

“The statements were so similar that they can be accused as being authored and directed from the same mind and pen. No one is fooled for a minute that the Freeport Licensees Association are as they present themselves: Independent of the operating minds of the Grand Bahama Port Authority.

“We reject each and every material allegation, statement, charge, supposition, theory, assertion or claim of both the Grand Bahama Port Authority and their surrogates. Their press releases were lame and will prove to be sickening, weak-kneed and impertinent,” Mr Mitchell continued.

The so-called licensees Association ought to be ashamed of themselves. They have let the side down. As for the Grand Bahama Port Authority, this is a time for silence, consulting your lawyers and stepping up to the plate and finding the money to make good what the Port has so far failed to do to promote and build a better Freeport.”