Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding wants Jamaica ready to attract the tourists once the financial crisis is over, and this, he believes, means the introduction of casino gambling. Mr. Golding told a Town Hall Meeting at the Montego Bay Civic Centre that Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Hon. Audley Shaw, will table the Bill in the House of Representatives on Tuesday and the country’s Parliament will debate the draft legislation next month.

"We spent a long time preparing the draft, because we wanted to ensure that every sentence was right: Every 't' was crossed and every 'i' dotted," he said. He added that the Government has already given an undertaking to two companies, that it is prepared to consider formally their applications for casino licences - one for Montego Bay and one for Trelawny(Harmony Cove), but that it wouldn’t come cheap.

"Before you can get a licence, you have to give us a bankable guaranteed commitment that you are going to build new hotels, with not less than 2,000 rooms and an investment of not less than US$1.5 billion. We want hotel rooms, we want employment, we want to be sure that when you get a licence you are going to use that licence to bring in thousands more visitors to Jamaica. That is how we are going to continue growing the tourism sector." (E-06.29.09)

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