Troubled Baha Mar project lays off 2,000 workers as stakeholder talks go nowhere

The troubled Baha Mar resort casino project grew more troubled on Friday as over two thousand employees received layoff notices.

Effective Friday, the Supreme Court of the Bahamas approved a request by Baha Mar’s provisional liquidators to issue redundancy notices to approximately 580 active employees and 1,440 non-active employees.

The active employees include management and line staff of the stalled $3.5b resort, which remains unfinished after work ceased at the end of June due to disputes between the developer, financial backers and the main contractor.

Alistair Beveridge, a member of the liquidation team, said the staff had been kept on as long as possible given the limited funds made available to the liquidators by the Bahamian government. But the resort had been “paying housekeeping staff when there was no housekeeping to do, spa staff when there was no spa, casino staff when there was no casino to operate.”