Prospect Reef abandoned, a symbol of NDP failure
Government had purchased the facility in the first National Democratic Party (NDP) administration between 2003 and 2007.
Dr Smith told the public in March 2016—when the ICA arrangement was mentioned—that ICA (BVI) Group Corp, was awarded the opportunity to complete the development of Prospect Reef Hotel.
In December 2016, Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with that group.
Where is ICA?
This MOU, Dr Smith said, sets the framework for progressing with the re-development of Prospect Reef Resort, and to also operate the Hotel.
The ICA group had some local investors, with the Group’s Managing Director, Ali Nawaz Shaikh, of the Middle East.
A few months after the agreement there was money put aside to pay the redundant workers at Prospect Reef and a Management committee was set up to ensure the payments were made.
There was money paid to the former employees in 2017, however, after the September 2017 Hurricanes, former workers are still owed monies.
It is this news centre's understanding that the development—after almost three years—is awaiting a lease from Government that is caught up in bureaucratic back and forth and is now preventing the investors from completing their financing.
Left abandon
The property suffered severe damages after the 2017 Hurricanes however, like many other public buildings, the former Smith Administration left them the same way they were after the Hurricanes.
Many critics of the former government have said publicly, the way the NDP did nothing to restore public buildings or even clean some of them up is another symbol of the NDP failure and dysfunction while in office.
The people of the Virgin Islands voted overwhelmingly to rid the Territory of the NDP, at the February 25, 2019 polls.
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