Gov­ern­ment is push­ing ahead with To­ba­go's Mag­dale­na Grand now. Qual­i­fied pro­pos­als re­gard­ing an op­er­a­tor for the Mag­dale­na Grand re­sort and golf course are cur­rent­ly be­ing con­sid­ered, Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley has con­firmed. Row­ley did so dur­ing yes­ter­day's Par­lia­ment sit­ting where he replied to Op­po­si­tion ques­tions in­clud­ing di­rec­tions fol­low­ing the re­cent col­lapse of Gov­ern­ment's San­dals plan.

He said there was no cost con­nect­ed with San­dals' with­draw­al since San­dals bore the cost of what­ev­er they did and Gov­ern­ment had han­dled sur­veys.

Row­ley said con­trary to what was be­ing said—that Gov­ern­ment was stand­ing en­tire­ly on San­dals and de­pend­ing on­ly on this for To­ba­go ini­tia­tives—the ad­min­is­tra­tion is pre­pared to and is en­gaged in talk­ing to "any ac­cept­able en­ti­ty that is in­ter­est­ed in iden­ti­fy­ing To­ba­go as a lo­ca­tion of in­ter­est".

He said the process to get a long-term op­er­a­tor for the Mag­dale­na Grand was ad­vanc­ing but it is pre­ma­ture at this stage to de­ter­mine what the terms and con­di­tions will be.

He said the process must be al­lowed to con­tin­ue and this is be­ing pur­sued by a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed steer­ing team un­der the Fi­nance Min­istry. That team is cur­rent­ly eval­u­at­ing the fi­nal pro­pos­als for an op­er­a­tor.

He said at the ap­pro­pri­ate time, ap­pro­pri­ate doc­u­ments on the mat­ter re­quired to be tabled in Par­lia­ment will be laid.

There may need to en­hance the fa­cil­i­ty's break­wa­ter, beach, and re­fur­bish the ho­tel.

But he said Gov­ern­ment at this stage was not in dis­cus­sion with the Sun­wing Trav­el Group "or any­body else" for sale of the Mag­dale­na Grand or golf course.

Row­ley said a vis­it by Sun­wing was part of Gov­ern­ment's en­cour­age­ment to for­eign in­vestors and sup­port for in­vest­ing in the busi­ness of To­ba­go.

"What we have had is an open door to Sun­wing or any oth­er well-known in­ter­na­tion­al brand that might lift To­ba­go's tourism plant.

"Some we pay to look for, oth­ers come through on their own, but the door is open as we search and con­tin­ue to search for an in­ter­na­tion­al brand for the Mag­dale­na Grand."

Row­ley de­tailed in­cen­tive mea­sures to boost To­ba­go tourism from ac­com­mo­da­tion up­grade pro­grammes, in­creased re­bates for var­i­ous cat­e­gories and oth­er perks. He said Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to ad­vance To­ba­go as the jew­el of the Caribbean, a great place for in­vestors to in­vest their mon­ey and where they would meet a Gov­ern­ment with an open door.

On an­oth­er mat­ter—when a T&T am­bas­sador to Venezuela would be ap­point­ed—Row­ley said all busi­ness with Venezuela was be­ing han­dled by "head­quar­ters" while Gov­ern­ment seeks agree­ment on ap­point­ing an am­bas­sador.