In an at­tempt to re­sus­ci­tate the dream of a San­dals ho­tel in To­ba­go, Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says he will be meet­ing with the ho­tel com­pa­ny’s ex­ec­u­tive chair­man next Mon­day.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence, Young said, “I am hap­py to tell the pop­u­la­tion, as I've just been able to tell Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley, that Mr (Adam) Stew­art has agreed to come and meet with my­self, the Chief Sec­re­tary and oth­er stake­hold­ers in To­ba­go on Mon­day."

Young de­clared, “Peo­ple of To­ba­go in par­tic­u­lar, this is a fab­u­lous op­por­tu­ni­ty. We need to learn from the mis­takes of the past and not al­low a few mis­guid­ed naysay­ers stop the po­ten­tial de­vel­op­ment of the econ­o­my of To­ba­go. This is for To­ba­go."

In 2019 the com­pa­ny with­drew in­ter­est in set­ting up shop in To­ba­go as San­dals CEO Geb­hard Rain­er blamed it on neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty.

It has since been a ma­jor re­gret of for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley blam­ing some for chas­ing them away.

At the time con­cerns were raised about the en­vi­ron­men­tal dam­age that could be in­curred if the ho­tel was built.

Yes­ter­day Young said, “I am look­ing for­ward to that meet­ing be­cause re­mem­ber we had ne­go­ti­at­ed with Mr Stew­art and his then fa­ther Butch Stew­art for not on­ly a San­dals but a Beach­es in To­ba­go and a new Greg Nor­man-de­signed golf course and un­for­tu­nate­ly we al­lowed that op­por­tu­ni­ty to slip away from this."

The Prime Min­is­ter added, “This is a de­ci­sion that will up­lift the econ­o­my of To­ba­go in sig­nif­i­cant ways. Look at what hap­pened in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, a project that start­ed af­ter where we should have been and im­me­di­ate­ly it has led to in­creased air­lift and pos­i­tive growth of their GDP."

Young said Wat­son Duke would al­so be in­vit­ed to the meet­ing. Both Duke and Chief Sec­re­tary Au­gus­tine were called out by Dr Kei­th Row­ley on his last day as Prime Min­is­ter to get in­volved in mak­ing the meet­ing hap­pen. (Akash Sama­roo)