Costa San Andrea wants talks to begin

by David Kelleher

The government should start discussions with the Consortium San Andrea on the development of the White Rocks Holiday complex because its proposal was the one that has matched the development brief most closely.

In a statement yesterday, the consortium said it was clear that the Gasan-Siva Consortium's proposal goes counter to the development brief and therefore the Minister for Tourism should start talks with Costa San Andrea as soon as the deadline for talks to be completed is reached.

Costa San Andrea said the minister had committed himself to discussions with the Gasan-Siva Consortium and these had to be completed by 3 April. In a press release the minister had said discussions with Gasan-Siva were to concentrate on the concerns expressed in the report submitted by the White Rocks selection committee. The report was not made public by the minister, despite calls from the other consortia that it should be released.

It was later presented in Parliament by the Opposition. In its report, Costa San Andrea said the selection committee had expressed concern over two aspects of the Gasan-Siva proposal.

These were:

4.4.1 The Gasan-Siva development proposal consists of two separate and independent projects... which are to be developed in two separate phases. This is counter to the development brief proposal issued by the government.

4.4.2 Gasan-Siva failed to give any details on how, and who will be financing and operating the Town/leisure centre, and stated that this will be a self-financing venture.

Costa San Andrea said it was clear that this was counter to the brief and there are two options: either the Gasan-Siva consortium change their proposals to conform to the brief, or retain, meaning that the government has gone against the brief.

In the light of this, Costa San said that following the deadline, the government should start discussions with them.

"It is clear that Minister Refalo now needs to implement what he has committed to do in his press release of the 23 February," a consortium spokesman said.