Spanish group Codere will be the new operator of Carrasco Hotel Casino Carrasco for 30 years. Montevideo Council will officially reveal in the following days who is the winner. Besides, members of the chain Hyatt-Liberman assure that they will continue with the challenge because they consider that the tender process was not transparent. Last week Montevideo City Council was to reveal who the winner was, but the issue has been postponed for today.
Representative of the consortium comprised by Hyatt chain and Liberman Group, Marcelo Graniero, questioned the transparency of the tender process and said that the city council "is going to have another failure, like Carmitel II", with regards to the previous and controversial tender concluded by Ehrlich administration. Graniero commented that none of the other three firms interested in the tender (Codere, Tsakos and Pestana) showed to have the economic and financial support demanded by the Council.
Montevideo Council put to sale the documents for the tender process of Hotel Casino Carrasco for a 30-year period. Authorities aim to turn this place in a high-level touristic center, which competes with Hotel Conrad in Punta del Este. The director de Economic Development of Montevideo, Luis Polakof, remarked that, in the tender process, “the most valuable thing, besides taxes, is the architectural work.
Last week, Montevideo council started receiving offers from private businessmen interested in the tender of Hotel Casino Carrasco, according to the Director of Supplying of the Council, Néstor Fernández. Last Wednesday 26th, the government passed the law which authorizes the council to put to tender the operation of Casino Carrasco to casino or hotel companies.
The Senate approved this week a bill that authorizes the opening of an international tender process for the casino operation of Carrasco Hotel Casino. The debate was intense and the opposition remarked that it is a “historical contradition” from the left wing, which now boosts privatizations, something that was against their own ideas. Besides, legislator Jorge Gandini, from Partido Blanco, said he was afraid that this tender is “customized, as part of a series of irregularities in local casinos”.
Last Friday, Montevideo Local Council approved the privatization of Carrasco Hotel Casino. Its employees assisted to the session and opposed to the measure. When asked about the support of Anibal Glodosky, a representative of the opposite party, Fabían Villamarín, representative of the official party, pointed that he is a “moral guarantee” for Montevideo citizens, and added that the official party voted modifications performed by the two big political parties.
