What's going to happen to Brad's and its Boledo concession? As we told you at the start of the year, the Chairperson of the Lotteries Committee, Narda Garcia has written to Brads Gaming, basically accusing the company of breach of contract. In a letter dated dated December 23rd she outlines twelve main areas of non compliance with their contractual obligations.
In her stern letter, Garcia gave the company until January 16, 2023, to provide a written response to the alleged breaches.
That's coming up in a few days, and today in San Pedro we asked the Prime Minister what's the plan - since his government seems determined to disqualify Brad's. But, PM Briceno didn't want to jump the gun:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"First of all we have to give the Brad's Gaming Company an opportunity for them to answer and it depends on their response then that's when we're going to make a decision. But we know for instance the first ten years that Brad's had the license, not one single year did they make any kind of financial reporting to the Boledo Commission or to the Ministry of Finance and the Minister of Finance then was the prime minister, Dean Barrow, and not one time did they have any kind of reporting but once we came in and started to settle in and started to take a look at all of these things, we wrote them a letter, I think in the middle of last year, telling them that you are not complying to the agreement so we gave them an opportunity to be able to comply and here we are more than six months later, they never did, so we were forced to write a letter saying you are not complying with this and giving them an opportunity to be able to come to meet with the, I think it's the lotteries commission, to point out what they're doing to be able to comply."
Reporter:
"What's the value there in terms of the amount owed?"
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"It's not a matter that they have anything outstanding because they've been paying, I think what they do - it's a good deal you know - they sell the boledo, collect the boledo and after they done collect the boledo at the end of the first quarter, they pay the fees for that quarter, then they collect the next money for the second quarter after they collect money, then they pay money, I mean you couldn't get a better deal and sometimes we need to ask why is it the prime minister Barrow allowed that but that's for another day. So it's not a matter that they have outstanding, it's just a matter that they have not been complying with the conditions of the license."
We did reach out to Brad's attorney for comment, but he was unavailable this afternoon.
