The vesting of the land to regional and international organisations is not a new phenomenon, says Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley.
She made that point as she defended the Government’s decision to approve the vesting of 2.037 hectares at Jemmott’s Lane, St Michael, to Afreximbank, during a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday evening for the Afreximbank African Trade Centre at the site which previously housed the old General Hospital, the Ministry of Health complex and other agencies over the years.
Since the vesting was approved, members of the Democratic Labour Party and some residents have objected to the deal.
“My Government stands proud here today to bring into the pantheon of financial institutions in this country, the Afreximbank. Not simply as an entity that is leasing a building from somebody for an office, but as someone who is now about to lay roots and foundations in this country – the first outside of the continent of Africa.
“In so doing, we send the signal that we intend to reclaim our Atlantic
destiny in ways that allow us not simply to look north, but to continue to look east, west and south,” Mottley said.
The Prime Minister recalled some of the site’s other usages, including that in 1994 after she was sworn in as a minister, her office was located in the complex.
“This site was chosen for the first hospital to be built for emancipated slaves and it opened in 1844 . . . . I spent just under two years there while we refurbished the old Queen’s College site which then became the Ministry of Education.
“I say these things because the simple determination to . . . add value to the people of this nation cannot be reduced to the kind of diatribe that I’ve heard,” she said.
She added that like the arrangement with Afreximbank, the previous administration made similar deals with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) and the United Nations (UN).
“We are a sovereign state and like other sovereign nations, we enter into relationships with regional and international bodies that have acceptable standards and norms. This country took immense pride when the first UN secretary general from the African continent, Kofi Annan, came to Barbados at the turn of the millennium to open up the UN House, a house where the land was given to the UN by the people and Government of Barbados, and where the building was built by the people and Government of Barbados.
“The same happened with other entities, the most recent of which is the CXC building where we not only gave the land, but we built the building. Just over 50 years ago when the CDB was established, and a determination was made to find its headquarters in this great land, the people and Government gave the land to the CDB,” Mottley said.
About $360 million (US$180 million) will be invested over the next three years to develop the office and hotel complex. The Afreximbank African Trade Centre is expected to bring over 1 000 jobs as the proposed two 12-storey towers are constructed.
Mottley said the construction will take into account that the building is located within a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
“They shall do so consistent with the plans and policies that the Government has set for multi-storey accommodation throughout this part of Bridgetown, sensitive to it being a World Heritage Site,” she said.
Government and the Afreximbank hosted the firstever Africa-Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum in 2022. In 2023, the Afreximbank CARICOM Office was opened, the first outside of Africa.
President of Afreximbank Professor Benedict Oramah, in his address, said the hotel rooms are expected to enhance Barbados’ tourism product while the offices in the complex will house the bank’s offices as well as lettable office spaces.
Caribbean businesses as well as African banks and businesses that have started business in CARICOM are also expected to take up space in the centre. (TG)
