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PM threw Undertaking breach query Doctors: us ‘under the bus’ on $700m Baha Mar start on NHI irregularity * Developer’s attorney pledged no construction due to appeal * Seawall work begins, but Baha Mar says separate from case A FORMER Cabinet * Ex-Cabinet minister to ‘hold’ project to promise before Board minister is pledging to By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
“hold” Baha Mar to its undertaking after construction work related to the $700m resort expansion launched despite an active and ongoing challenge to the project’s planning approvals. Damian Gomez KC, ex-minister of state for legal affairs in the last Christie administration, told Tribune Business he plans to “check” whether the Cable Beach mega resort developer has breached a pledge given to the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board by its attorneys last Tuesday. Graham, Thompson & Company promised that no construction work or activity would occur before the outcome of the bid by Mr Gomez’s client, who is Richard Demeritte, The Bahamas’ first auditor-general, to overturn the preliminary site plan approval granted by the Town Planning Committee for the Melia Nassau
Beach Resort’s 20-storey replacement. However, at the following day’s ground-breaking ceremony for the development, featuring Prime Minister Philip Davis KC and other Cabinet ministers, it was said that construction work on the project would begin on Thursday - the very next day. Legal sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, are questioning whether this not only represents a breach of the Appeal Board undertaking but also a violation of the Planning and Subdivision Act’s section 65. “It’s distasteful to have a ground-breaking when there’s an appeal going on,” one contact argued. That section deals with the planning appeals process before the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board. This newspaper was advised that section 65 stipulates that an active appeal effectively acts as a ‘stay’ for
any development project meaning construction work cannot take place until the matter is heard and determined by the Board in the developer’s favour. But Robert Sands, Baha Mar’s senior vice-president of government and external affairs, told Tribune Business that construction work to-date only involves the $700m project’s seawall component. He asserted that this is not covered by, and is separate and apart, from the appeal now before the Subdivision and Development which is only concerned with construction of the new hotel itself. “The seawall, the first phase, started yesterday,” Mr Sands said on Friday. “They are two separate issues. That application was in prior to the site plan approval - that aspect of the construction of the hotel.” Asserting that observers were “mixing up two different issues”, he added:
Bahamas protecting ‘five slices of pizza’ over growth to 20-30 By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net GRAND Bahama’s Chamber of Commerce president says this nation must shed its protectionist Immigration mentality if the economy and major foreign direct investment
(FDI) projects are to flourish, as he warned: “The reality is we are penny wise and pound foolish.” Dillon Knowles, telling Tribune Business that the private sector advocacy group is “extremely concerned” about Grand
ECONOMY - SEE Page B6
“There is an appeal that has been put forward but that is an appeal against the construction of the hotel… I would simply state that, as mentioned during the ground-breaking, that’s [the seawall] separate and apart from the construction of the hotel.” Mr Gomez, in reply, acknowledged that Mr Sands may be correct but promised to look into the matter. “If they’ve breached the undertaking that they gave the Board when we were there that they will not do anything besides the ground-breaking ceremony, I’ll make a complaint to the Board,” he told Tribune Business. “I’ll have to look at it again. He may be right. I’m not sure. I’m going to check it… The appeal, under the statute, operates as a stay. They [Graham, Thompson on Baha Mar’s behalf] told
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By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@ tribunemedia.net
BAHAMIAN doctors are accusing the Prime Minister of throwing their reputation “under the bus” with vague assertions about National Health Insurance (NHI) billing “irregularities” as the scheme falls up to two months’ behind in paying some providers. Dr Denotrah Archer-Cartwright, a leading representative of the newly-formed National Health Insurance Providers Association (NHIPA), told Tribune Business that Philip Davis KC needs to “clarify” and fully explain what he meant by revealing that the Ministry of Finance had detected problems with NHI billings and payments. The Prime Minister added that a reconciliation exercise is being undertaken to determine the cause of these woes, and anomalies identified by NHI executives, but Dr Archer-Cartwright said it
was almost impossible for doctors and physicians to be responsible because they do not bill or make claims for payment on the government-run and financed healthcare scheme. She explained to this newspaper that NHI providers are compensated using the capitation model, where they are paid a set monthly sum per patient regardless of how many times they see a person or the amount of care and treatment they require. Dr Archer-Cartwright said any billing issues relating to doctors “have to be something NHI is doing or allowing to happen” - not caused by the physicians themselves. She agreed that the Prime Minister’s remarks threaten to damage the reputation of doctors providing services to NHI, but one healthcare industry source, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested that Mr Davis was likely referring to laboratory services providers and not physicians. They
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