‘Best deal’

Symmonds hails airport PPP as PM reveals country will get minimum 30 per cent revenue share By Jenique Belgrave Prime Minister Mia Mottley says Barbados will get revenue share of 30 per cent and up under a new public/private partnership (PPP) being negotiated for the Grantley Adams International Airport Inc. (GAIA). She gave a breakdown of the takings to be earned through the PPP as the Lower House on Tuesday took note of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government and the Office of Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum of Dubai, and Chilean company Agencias Universales SA. The Mottley administration is hoping to reach a final deal with the two foreign partners by mid-October on the new management arrangement that will bring $300 million in foreign investment for airport development, jobs and enhanced customer experience. “What we have finally received as guidance in this MOU is a revenue share of 30 per cent until 2019 passenger levels are achieved, 40 per cent once we get 2019 passenger levels and 50 per cent in the last 10 years of a 30-year concession,” Mottley disclosed. She reiterated that neither the airport nor the seaport was up for sale. “Our Government was very clear that we were not divesting ownership of the airport or the seaport, but that what we would do [is] ensure that we could have the awarding of a concession that carries with it other obligations but only for a time period and that mechanism, once crossed, it would leave ownership in the hands of the people of this nation predominantly, ” the PM said. “And secondly, [that] would allow us to benefit from investment into the infrastructure and operations of the airport, and because people were investing and it wasn’t just a straight loan, that they would also be bringing management and a wider range of networks and contacts to be able to increase the volume of traffic, both for passengers and for cargo; but in addition to that, looking at other value-added revenue opportunities for the airport,” she added. Earlier in the session, Senior Minister Kerrie Symmonds said that with the airport in “desperate need of rehabilitative work”, the Government had looked around for the best deal and settled on the $300 million investment by the Dubai-based group. “The policy decision that we took was that we will explore other alternative arrangements so as to try to get as close as possible to the ambitions we had when we began in 2018, but that we will not sell Barbados short by parting with the management of the airport to get a measly 11 per cent on the investment when the year comes – not when across the Caribbean, people are getting in 20 to 25. What we have now worked out via the MOU with the UAE is beginning at 30 per cent,” he said. Symmonds added that with the airport having an asset value of around $147 million, the expansion will provide an opportunity for employees to become shareholders. “If the Government of Barbados put 10 per cent of that into shares for the workers, do you understand, Sir, that we’re talking about the workers in Barbados for the first time in the history of this country being placed in a situation where a Government put $14 million to $15 million in their hands, directly to shareholders in the entity? That’s what we’re saying, Sir. That is economic enfranchisement, in its clearest sense. That is workers’ empowerment in its clearest sense. That is ordinary people who are the maids, ordinary people are the baggage handlers, Mr Speaker, being given a stake in the enterprise that they help keep working,” he added. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mottley has made it abundantly clear that there would be no tolerance for racial incitement of any type in this country, as she responded to concerns expressed by some people about the ethnicity of those involved in the partnership. “I hear that there are people who are talking about the fact that this is an Arab company. Mr Speaker, where do we now get off discriminating against people on the basis of nationality? And have we forgotten that Bajans have been going into Abeds every day for the last 40 or 50 years, and they go into the Beauty Shop in St Michael’s Row? We are better than that,” she said. “There can be no toleration of racial incitement of any type or ethnic incitement of any type in this country, and I will go to my grave defending that principle because that is not who we are,” the Prime Minister insisted. jeniquebelgrave@barbadostoday.bb]]>