(EDITOR’S NOTE: Responding to a published report that the “Florida-based Del Zotto family — principals of Gold Rock, Home Design Centre and Do It Centre on Freeport — have announced that they have decided to withdraw their investments on the island entirely,” the Grand Bahama Port Authority, Limited (GBPA) sets the record straight regarding claims made by the Del Zotto family that we decided to share with readers of BAHAMAS CHRONICLE as a Guest Commentary.)
GUEST COMMENTARY: BY GBPA
FREEPORT, Grand Bahama, August 1, 2022 –The Grand Bahama Port Authority, Ltd (GBPA) does not typically respond to false, salacious and purposefully sensationalized statements meant only to engage in mudslinging, which benefits no one. Our hearts go out to the employees and families impacted by the owners of Gold Rock’s decision to abruptly close their business. We are responding because everyone affected by this unfortunate and unnecessary move — and the community-at-large — deserve the real facts. These are:
The Del Zotto family is most certainly aware that they have never entered into any contractual agreement with GBPA as it relates to the sale of aggregate. They understand the entity they are engaged with is the Grand Bahama Development Company (DEVCO). They have attempted to make you feel like these entities are interchangeable, even though they know this to be false. They are hoping to take advantage of what they believe to be an unfavorable public sentiment against the GBPA, to use emotionally inciteful rhetoric, to distract and confuse from the plain facts of this situation.
As DEVCO explained in its release of July 4, the Del Zotto family, of Florida, entered into an agreement with DEVCO in 2017 to mine aggregate from the Devonshire subdivision in Grand Bahama. In the agreement they were given exclusivity to this area and source, provided they met the agreed upon quantity.
The Del Zotto family consistently failed to meet the agreed upon quantity, and this was the case even before Hurricane Dorian and Covid. This means that even though they were not mining the amount of aggregate they were contractually required to, by nature of that contract, they continued to prevent any other entity, including local contractors, from having access to that aggregate.
The new contract DEVCO proposed right-sized the agreement so that the Del Zotto family would have access to the amount of aggregate that they had been actually able to mine, since the first contract was established in 2017. This would have allowed the Del Zotto family to maintain their current operations as they had for the past five years, while not continuing to have exclusivity over the remaining aggregate in Devonshire, which they had failed to mine.
DEVCO’s new contract was seeking to do two things: provide the Del Zotto family with exactly what they have been using to run their operations so they would not be disadvantaged; and free up unused resources so that prospective investors, including local Bahamians, would not continue to be disenfranchised and would have the same entrepreneurial opportunity as the Del Zottos of Florida.
Regardless of their stance on the mining contract, there is no need to shut down the other businesses in Freeport, including a much-needed hardware store and furniture and home center which were totally unaffected by the Gold Rock negotiations. This move, seemingly motivated by nothing but spite, will cost yet more hardworking families their livelihoods and further shrink the options available to consumers in a struggling economy.
Contractors, the construction sector and the wider community in Grand Bahama are well aware of the above and many have raised the issue of a more equitable arrangement under the circumstances. This is exactly what DEVCO sought to provide. That the Del Zotto family does not appear to share this perspective, says more at the end of the day about their attitude to Grand Bahama than it does DEVCO or the GBPA.
We will allow these facts to speak for themselves.
