Food court owner urges Government to act to resolve land dispute

Just over a month after Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced she had set a deadline for Attorney General Dale Marshall and Senior Minister of Planning and Development Dr William Duguid to wrap up negotiations with the operators of Savvy on the Bay over a land dispute, the owner of the Bay Street business has complained that “nothing is happening.”

Alan Kinch has urged the Mottley administration to return to the negotiating table and get the matter resolved once and for all.

In July, Kinch reported he had met with Marshall and Dr Duguid to try to reach an agreement on the sale of the property, at a time when the Government had threatened to compulsorily acquire a portion of the land owned by Kinch if they could not agree on its purchase by the State.

“I wonder why they couldn’t have a meeting and discuss this and get it done,” he told Barbados TODAY on Wednesday in a brief interview.

The businessman, who heads Savoy Development (Barbados) Inc., the operators of Savvy on the Bay on Bay Street, St Michael, also complained that he has not received a reply to his “many” emails sent to the government.

“My attorneys said he spoke to Dr Duguid last week, and he is waiting on an email from Dr Duguid or Mr Dale Marshall,” Kinch disclosed.

When contacted, Duguid declined to discuss the matter in the Press.

Back in August, Prime Minister Mottley said she had not expected the issue to be argued in public, adding that if the negotiations were not resolved by the deadline she had given, the facts would be made public. She did not reveal the date of the deadline.

The government wants to take over and build a car park on the beachfront land that Kinch bought from the Barbados Tourism Investment Inc. (BTII) in 2015, during the Freundel Stuart administration.

Now out of office, the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) on Wednesday attacked the government’s handling of the land dispute.

DLP president Dr Ronnie Yearwood said every landowner should be concerned that the situation between Savvy on the Bay and the Mottley administration was not over.

“Since the Prime Minister announced that negotiations are ongoing, government representatives have blatantly refused every meeting with the owner of Savvy to answer questions or offer a fair price for the property. What is the point in buying and developing land when the government can reclaim it from you in what amounts to a hostile takeover?” he said in a statement.

The DLP leader contended that the property which is now Savvy on the Bay was legally bought by Kinch.

“Yet the Prime Minister has repeatedly stated that the government still owns the land,” he observed.

“If this claim was true, there would be no need to invoke any law to compulsorily reclaim the land because the government would not need to reclaim what is already the government’s,” he argued.

Dr Yearwood also pointed out that the Attorney General is also on record saying that his administration tried to, but could not, prevent the sale of the land.

“So, by their own admission, the property was sold to Mr Kinch. Additionally, compulsory acquisition laws were created for projects that are in the interest of national development, not for an administration to take property from Barbadians and gift it to developers friendly to the Government and its political party regime.”

Yearwood also wants to know the “real” reason the administration plans to compulsorily acquire the land for a suggested parking lot when there are “so many” other properties in the Bay Street/Jemmotts Lane area where a parking lot could easily be constructed.

“While the Prime Minister has promised that the Savvy vendors will not be moved or forced out, more information needs to be provided. Understand that these vendors have invested tens of thousands of dollars in building materials and commercial equipment. So, to truly feel comfortable, they need to know any possible changes to their rent and lease agreements. Unfortunately, they too have received nothing but silence from this muted administration,” said the DLP president.

“If the Mottley-led government was actually transparent, they would meet with Mr Kinch and the vendors and keep the public updated. Instead, government is using their power behind closed doors to ignore due process, take property from a Barbadian landowner while ordering him not to go to the media. This is not right, this is not fair, this is not democracy.”

Yearwood promised that the DLP would speak out whenever it saw wrongs and injustices being done by the Prime Minister.

“In addition, should the people return the DLP to government, any new DLP government will investigate transactions by this government that were wrong and unjust and will not hesitate to reverse such acts,” he concluded.

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb