Cruise pier tendering process a ‘sham’ – Speak Your Mind Caller
During the programme, which was aired on a local television station on March 23, 2013 the caller asked, “The cruise ship port, you see what happened to the company?”
“…you see it come out now that it’s a sham,” the caller said while claiming that he had forewarned that this was the case from the inception.
Host of the programme, Julio ‘Sam’ Henry felt that Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (RCCL) should be refunded after reportedly claiming that the procurement process for the proposed Cruise Pier Project lacked fairness and transparency.
The company reportedly wrote a letter requesting that they be reimbursed $190,000 which was money spent on consultants and attorneys to put their bid together.
Henry also said he found the entire episode to be ‘disgraceful’. “I want the people to know, that if that’s the case, I think it’s wrong,” he added in reference to claims the company made about goal posts being moved.
“My biggest plea,” he added, “is to the people who are responsible… I want the people who are responsible for this to let them know, ‘man we got to stop this fighting, we got to stop this fighting’ there is no need for us to fight over something like this.”
The host also felt that taxi drivers were sleeping on the issue. “You try to educate some of our taxi fellow men and they fall asleep on the programme…”
He further stated, “I’ll tell you something about this Royal Caribbean deal, the Government has to be very, very careful. These people don’t’ realise that Royal Caribbean is the #2 player out here, in the entire cruising industry. Royal Caribbean commands almost 40 ships and they have marketing power in Germany, eastern Europe, all over North America…”
He continued, “I thought that the people who were negotiating would know who they’re up against and say ‘you know, maybe we should consider these guys because they’re most likely to do the things that we’re asking for an looking for’”.
Meanwhile, Premier Dr. The Hon. D. Orlando Smith, appearing on a recent NDP radio programme was asked by Hon. Archibald C. Christian whether it was accurate to say that of the five Ministers of Government, there was no discussion with respect to who would have been chosen at any point in time… “it was all left to the recommendations of the external team.”
Premier Smith responded by saying, “Of course, that is the way negotiations took place, in the form of transparency and openness. We appointed a negotiating team [and] they did all the work and reported back to government.”
48 Responses to “Cruise pier tendering process a ‘sham’ – Speak Your Mind Caller”
Martin Luther King Jr.
The generic design which could be anywhere says nothing about our culture, architecture and won't necessarily contribute to the economy as wildly expected. Plus- these developers want to "re-develop main street" and "contribute to developing the beaches for our passengers", which means cruise ship people going to run the territory and fancy it up to where it is not recognizable. This truly is the fox in the hen house mentality. The ministers have always wanted a "CITY" to compete with other metropolises. problem is this is an island and different from their target competition by its very nature.
Them buyout Edmun with a contract wit agriculture, them buy out Shenia wit a contrak on da hospital; them buy out Cromwel long time; por Douglas waste of time; and this joker Sam is no d*m good.
..so sad! I feel sorry for the BVI..I just read another story about the ports on another site...poor we!
We voted them in to lead the country but here they are not even able to get a little project off the ground
VIP no doubt is the best party to ruin Jamaica.