The ruling Congress administration of Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell has reached a US$5 million (approximately EC$13.5 million) deal with the owner of the Radisson Grenada resort to reverse the sale of the beach front Crown land to international grand prix racer Lewis Hamilton by the former 2003-2008 New National Party (NNP) government of former Prime Minister Keith Mitchell.
Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Senator Claudette Joseph made the disclosure during her contribution to the multi-million dollar Supplementary budget in the Upper House of Parliament on Tuesday.
“This government has entered into an agreement with Time Bourke Holdings to purchase, to get back that property, and we have already paid the deposit, and you would have seen in the Gazette some notification of the acquisition,” Sen. Joseph told the Upper House.
“I have to inform the nation that the negotiation got to a stage where we had to acquire the property, but notwithstanding the acquisition, and the publication of the notice, the negotiations continued, and the parties agreed to a sale,” she said.
This was the second attempt at acquiring the property through acquisition with the first taking place in the 2008-13 period in government of Congress under then Prime Minister Tillman Thomas.
The move met with resistance from within the Cabinet of Ministers from two members in particular.
According to Sen. Joseph, the “property will be returned to the people of Grenada with absolutely no risk of there being a challenge to the acquisition to us having gotten ownership of the property.”
Approximately (2) months ago, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell announced that his administration would ban the sale of crown lands on Grand Anse Beach.
He also spoke of plans to present a Bill to Parliament that would ensure state lands remain in the hands of the people.
Sen. Joseph told the Upper House that the provision for the US$5 million deal is included in the EC$60 million allocation in the Supplementary Budget for the Ministry of Finance to facilitate the purchase/acquisition of critical assets/investments to support the Government’s transformative agenda.
Provisions are also made in a sum of $35 million to purchase 89 acres of land at Calivigny, St. George, from a local businessman to build the much talked about Teaching hospital and $4.8 million for the old Cable & Wireless building on The Carenage to be used as the new headquarters of the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF).
Sen. Joseph informed the Senate that the Government is also close to finalising an agreement with True Blue Development Ltd Co., the developer of the failed Citizenship by Investment CBI-approved Kimpton Kawana Bay resort.
This project, which is located on the property previously occupied by the Flamboyant Hotel on Grand Anse Beach, was also awarded a freehold lease from the NNP administration in 2016.
Work stopped in 2020 after the developer challenged a decision of the Keith Mitchell-led NNP administration to prevent it from accessing finance from the sale of Grenadian passports under the CBI programme.
The matter is currently before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes which a few years earlier delivered a ruling against the then ruling NNP regime in favour of WRB Enterprises on the GRENLEC issue.