(Tanah Lot) Beer bottles and broken plastic chairs litter the fairways of the golf course on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali, where laid-off workers lament the broken promises of a signed six-star resort Donald Trump.
It’s been nearly a decade since the former real estate mogul signed an agreement to name the Nirwana Golf Resort after him. The complex, which offers an idyllic view of the Indian Ocean, was even described as a “dream project” in 2019 by Donald Trump Junior, the son of the former American president.
But today the weeds have invaded the golf course – another fiasco for Donald Trump, whose six casino and hotel bankruptcies have left billions of dollars in debt and affected thousands of lives.
“There was nothing clear about our future. We had heard that they would take us back but that never happened, ”laments Ditta Dwi, responsible for accompanying the golfers with their equipment.
The agreement signed in 2015 between the Trump Organization and the Indonesian promoter MNC has turned into a mirage for Indonesian workers.
It was to renovate the Nirwana, then considered one of the best golf courses in the world. It was also Trump’s first project in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.
But in 2017, the complex is closed, and hundreds of employees fired.
Five years later, the course is abandoned, the hotel demolished and its paths deserted, with the exception of a guard who goes around the site on a cart and keeps tourists away from the bushes that grow here and there.
The ghost site is a far cry from the luxury real estate empire Trump built before setting his sights on the White House.
But the real estate magnate, who recently made it known that he would run for the 2024 US Presidential election, had already experienced other colossal failures.
Between 1991 and 2009, six of its hotel and casino projects on the American East Coast went bankrupt.
To cover the losses of his first fiasco, the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, a city known for its casinos south of New York, the billionaire had to sell his yacht, his private jet and half of his shares.
“postponed project”
For his partner, MNC boss Hary Tanoesoedibjo, it’s the fault of COVID-19. However, the project had never been able to start, years before the start of the pandemic.
Edwin Darmasetiawan, director of the real estate department of MNC, does not consider “this project as a failure, but as postponed”.
At AFP, he explains this postponement by “financial problems” and hopes to see the work that has not yet started completed within two years.
He also specifies that he is “focusing now” on the Lido tourism development project, south of Jakarta, which has already drawn its share of controversy for having exhumed ancient Muslim graves, without authorization from the local population.
Asked about the Bali project, the Trump Organization declined to comment.
On the paradise island, a large number of workers lost their jobs after the billionaire’s decision to abandon the land.
“It was hard when I lost my job,” says Ditta Dwi, 26, “many were angry.”
Hotel employees received severance pay, but nearly 150 “cadets” responsible for transporting golf clubs received no compensation when their fixed-term contracts were terminated.
The young woman received a monthly salary of 1.3 million rupees (117 Canadian dollars) but she could some months pocket up to 1300 dollars thanks to the tips of the rich golfers.
She now only receives a salary of the same amount, as a waitress in a small restaurant nearby.
” Move on ”
Their lives have been deeply affected but former employees try to forget.
“I just gave up. We have to move on, ”breathes the young waitress.
“We must continue to live,” also believes Pita Dewi, 52, who worked for 18 years at the hotel spa.
This mother was very “stressed” by losing her job. “I was 48, how could I find a new job? remembers the 50-year-old who now manages her parents’ café.
But with typical Balinese indulgence, the locals decided to put aside their resentments towards the billionaire.
“If we hated him, would he give us money” for all that? Asks Pita Dewi.