Toppin questions profitability of LESC

THE Opposition Barbados Labour Party wants to hear more about the profitability of the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre (LESC), operated under the Barbados Conference Services Limited.

St. Michael North Member of Parliament, Ronald Toppin, raised the issue in the House of Assembly yesterday, during debate of a Resolution, seeking to Guarantee the Barbados Conference Services Limited a sum of Bds$17.625 million from First Citizens Bank (Barbados) Limited, for the purpose of assisting with the outfitting of new offices at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.

“We want to hear more about the profitability of this (Barbados) Conference Services Centre. It isn’t good enough to tell us that last year, the revenue stream improved a little better than the year before, which proved to be a little better than the year before,” he said in reference to comments made earlier by Minister of Tourism and International Transport, Richard Sealy.

Toppin suggested that since 1994, the LESC has been “a project without a plan”. He also noted that funds have been constantly pumped into the centre, which has been the source of “controversy and scandal”, as well as cost overruns, as the determination for its final keeps changing over time.

“We have paid a terrible price financially, because over the years, millions upon millions of dollars have been pumped into that institution, which as I said, is nothing more than a project without a plan,” the Opposition MP remarked.

He also noted that the Tourism Minister had injected by way of a guarantee, a sum of $58 million for the facility a few years ago, which now serves as a debt to government. The Minister announced then, he said, that the money was to be used to build out the commercial office space at LESC, as well as to build a multi-storey car park and fix up a kitchen. Now more money is being sought, he lamented.

“The Minister returns today now, some seven, eight years later, with a further injection again of some seventeen-plus million dollars into the same Conference Services Centre and all he can tell us is that last year’s revenue was more than the year before. That is not enough. We need to hear about the profitability of the entity, because this entity we call the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre has really behaved like a pond of quick sand or bottomless pit that just sucks in money,” Toppin said. (RSM)