By Sampson Nanton From Guardian tt

The man­age­ment of San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al has an­nounced that they are pulling of To­ba­go.

The an­nounce­ment was made at a news con­fer­ence in Port-of-Spain fol­low­ing a meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and oth­er key min­is­ters at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Stu­art Young said the de­ci­sion was due to bad pub­lic­i­ty by a “hand­ful of peo­ple”.

He de­scribed this as a bad day for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

San­dals CEO Geb­hard Rain­er said there is no cost to Trinidad and To­ba­go since no con­tracts were signed by the two par­ties.

A state­ment by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) con­firmed that Deputy Chair­man, Adam Stew­art and CEO, Geb­hard Rain­er of San­dals Re­sorts Inc met with the prime min­is­ter and Min­is­ter Young.

It said that at the meet­ing, the San­dals’ ex­ec­u­tives in­formed the Gov­ern­ment that un­for­tu­nate­ly, due to “the cu­mu­la­tive ef­fect of the neg­a­tive nar­ra­tives es­poused about the pur­suit of a San­dals and Beach­es Re­sort in To­ba­go, the Board of San­dals de­cid­ed that its re­sources should be utilised else­where at this time”.

The state­ment said that Stew­art and Rain­er con­firmed that as the par­ties had not com­plet­ed any com­mer­cial agree­ments there would be no costs from San­dals for the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­count.

“They thanked the Gov­ern­ment and said that it had been a plea­sure work­ing with the Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter Young over the last cou­ple of years and that there was a lev­el of dis­ap­point­ment that the project would not be pro­ceed­ing,” the state­ment added.

It not­ed that the gov­ern­ment, while dis­ap­point­ed at this turn of events, con­tin­ues to be com­mit­ted to the de­vel­op­ment of To­ba­go and will con­tin­ue to look for op­por­tu­ni­ties for To­ba­go.

For more on this story go to: http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/sandals-pulls-out-tobago-6.2.757325.576e44604d