The Transfer of Jolly Beach to Social Security

A Strategic Imperative By Prime Minister Gaston Browne

Government of Antigua and Barbuda – August 2025

In 2014, our Administration embarked on a bold journey: to rebuild Antigua and Barbuda by harnessing our people’s talents, skills, and goodwill. We envisioned not mere recovery but transformation, turning our unitary state into a Caribbean economic powerhouse. From day one, we knew transformation wasn’t instant or inherited. It would demand our generation’s sweat, intellect, perseverance, and a dramatic break with the old colonial extractive model.

We coined a new paradigm— “Entrepreneurial Socialism” or “Empowerment Capitalism—a system under which the State partners with the private sector to generate profits that are then socialized through taxes and dividends, fueling social and economic development. In this model, the government must be entrepreneurial: seeking strategic investments, aligning public and private incentives, and ensuring that every dollar of profit enriches our people rather than departing abroad.

Architecting our development means crafting a destiny of creativity, ownership, and self-reliance. It demands that each citizen embrace hard work, strategic thinking, and an entrepreneurial spirit—whether at the micro level of individual enterprise or the macro scale of national infrastructure. Accordingly, we have invested heavily in education and skills training so that all Antiguans and Barbudans can be qualified to participate at the highest levels of our nation’s advancement.

We have already demonstrated the power of this approach. Where once significant assets belonged to foreign owners, they now belong to our people. For instance, WIOC, formerly foreign-controlled, is now majority-owned by the government and people of Antigua and Barbuda. Its retained profits and dividend payments—over EC$160 million in the past decade—have been invested to drive further growth. Another example is that, benefiting from the Government’s policies to ensure Canadian bank branches could only be sold to domestic banks, our domestic banks posted combined profits of EC$110 million last year. These profits remain in our economy rather than being repatriated abroad.

The next logical step in our national blueprint is focused on the Jolly Beach Hotel and how it can be utilized to maximize the returns on investment through our Social Security Scheme. By transferring ownership of this tourism resort to the Social Security Scheme, renovating and expanding it under Empowerment Capitalism, we will generate sustainable profits for our people and fortify the pension scheme that safeguards their livelihoods in retirement.

When some in the Opposition insisted on selling to foreign interests, I was flabbergasted. Such an action would not only fail to “emancipate ourselves from mental slavery,” but it would also send the profits from our people’s investment abroad. This is why we opted to exchange this irreplaceable real-estate asset for a portion of our delinquent bond, thus reducing our debt while earning a higher yield from the investment in the Social Security Scheme’s investment assets—a clear win for Antigua and Barbuda.

To suggest that only a foreign godfather could make Jolly Beach succeed is to cling to the dependency and risk-aversion syndrome we have spent a decade overturning. We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in educating thousands of our citizens. We possess the intellectual capital, creativity, and resilience to make the Jolly Beach Hotel and every other project a triumphant testament to our nation’s capacity and great potential.

No country advances by standing still or waiting for validation from abroad. We must be both the sponsors and the architects of our development. As your elected Prime Minister, I stand ready to build alongside you, leveraging our broad talents, indomitable spirit, and unified strength to realize our vision of a vibrant nation.

In the following pages, you will find the detailed plan for transferring the Jolly Beach Hotel to our Social Security Scheme. Under this plan, the Social Security Scheme converts a non-performing EC$330 million government bond into a performing asset transferred at a set-off value of EC$137.7 million (US$51.0 million). Based on the ten-year sales plan in this booklet, the project delivers net receipts of EC$392.75 million (US$145.46 million) into a dedicated, third-party escrow account over ten years. That is more than twice the EC$192.3 million residual on the original bond.

At the same time, the value of the asset will increase exponentially.  This strategic initiative will:

– Strengthen the Social Security Scheme with a reliable, above-inflation revenue stream—transforming a dormant liability into an engine of prosperity for every pensioner;

– Expand national ownership of productive enterprises, ensuring that profits remain in Antigua and Barbuda to be reinvested in schools, hospitals, and infrastructure;

– Empower our homegrown managers, giving Antiguans and Barbudans trained in hotel and corporate management the opportunity to lead, innovate, and grow their careers and our economy.

-Pay off the residual amount of EC$192.3 million on the original bond of EC$330 million.

Together, we will secure tomorrow’s pension checks and forge a broader culture of ownership and professional excellence. Let us move forward confidently, knowing that by building the Jolly Beach Hotel into a world-class, citizen-owned enterprise – owned by the Social Security Scheme – we are advancing the interests of all Antiguans and Barbudans, and laying another firm cornerstone of our economic powerhouse.

Your faithful servant.

Gaston A. Browne MP

Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Empowerment

See Printing Full Text of Jolly Beach Hotel; Social Security Scheme Booklet:

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