Anguilla’s Chief Minister, the Hon. Osbourne Fleming, says the Government has been informed by a representative of the Flag/Temenos project that the developers are actively engaged in discussions with financial institutions to access some two hundred million dollars which they estimate will complete the development.

CM Fleming

Mr. Fleming said that Government was advised by the proprietors of the large tourism project that they were encountering some financial difficulties. “This project was estimated to cost initially $180 million dollars but to date this project has spent in excess of $500 million dollars. Obviously the project is over-budgeted. There is no question about that,” Mr. Fleming told the media on Friday, September 5, during a press conference.

The Chief Minister observed that there were many factors that accounted for that. Among them were increases in transportation and labour costs. “All of us are well aware of the financial situation of the world today and, don’t matter who you are, the lenders of money to institutions of this kind is not easy,” he went on. “Money is tight; there are serious problems with the institutions in the United States, more so, who have been lending money; and we in Anguilla are fortunate that our local banks are still lending when in other jurisdictions it is not very easy to get loans especially in the areas of mortgages and so on. So we understand the difficulty which the project is experiencing. It seems that it is seriously over-budgeted and we know, within ourselves, that projects that come to Anguilla are not here with money from any particular person’s pocket. The money for all the projects is borrowed from institutions engaged in this kind of business.
“We are told that as they [the developers] proceed with the negotiations for funding, it will take the balance of the month or some time into October before any financing can take place… In Anguilla we are very lucky that you can probably get a mortgage loan from one of the local banks in two or three days. That is not the situation outside of Anguilla… where to get a small loan takes two to three weeks, but in Anguilla it is different. The institutions know us, we have a record and so matters can be processed quickly.”

Mr. Fleming told the reporters that as a result of the situation a number of the Chinese construction workers had requested to be repatriated. “Our argument is clear that we cannot have the Chinese engaged in any work outside of the project. We gave them permits to work at the Flag/Temenos project and not outside of there to compete with Anguillians,” he said. ”This would be in contravention of the policy and terms of the work permit. You don’t see many of them now, but this is not to say that some persons in Anguilla are not still trying to get them to work for them. We have said that until the project resumes and if they are here behaving themselves in an orderly manner, they can stay on site.”

The Chief Minister hoped that the situation at the project would soon be resolved. He stated that as a result of its closure, Anguilla was paying a price in that a number of construction workers were not working, some Anguillians employed at offices there had been laid off; the services of a number of vendors had been suspended; and a number of rental accommodation facilities which were receiving ‘good money’ from a lot of expatriate persons working as engineers and in other fields had also been suspended. He said in addition that supermarkets were experiencing reduced business as a further result.

“We are all feeling the pinch of its absence and so we are hoping that this project would soon start up operations so that what we intended to get out of it, we will receive,” he stated. “I hope that the negotiations will proceed quickly and that very soon we will see it start again. It is a massive project. It is the largest project in the Eastern Caribbean… and we were expecting, and still expecting, that our young people and all others in Anguilla would benefit from it in a next year or two when it opens.”

Meanwhile, the Chief Minister reported that he visits Viceroy, the other big project, every week. “The work at that project is doing very well and speedily,” he stated. “They are pushing to open some part of that project by the end of the year…They are in process of finishing the hotel and to that end we have agreed for them to bring in some ‘finishers’- these are specialist people and they are moving very quickly.”

Mr. Fleming said the Government would like to see this particular project opened because Viceroy meant nothing significantly to Anguilla unless it was finished. He noted that a number of the workers there were not Anguillian nationals, and that the Government wanted the project completed so that young people leaving school, or having been trained in hospitality services at the Community College Development Unit, could find suitable employment at the project.
“Whatever support we as a Government can give, will be do so,” Chief Minister Fleming added. “It will not be in the form of finance or concessions. We have already given what we had to give but whatever we can do to help expedite the project we will do. We have had cases where they brought in people for specialist jobs and we have quickly accommodated them to ensure that the work permits were in place so that this work can be completed.”

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