Photo of The WeekCONFUSION INDEED: the facsimile of the National Review page of the Nassau Guardian. The Guardian even had an editorial on the same issue last week. The Tribune had its own version. The Government when it talks says that its doing a great job. Well we think not. But then again Prime Minister Hubert Minnis is a genius and we are all fools. Our photo of the week of the National Review of The Nassau Guardian describing on Wednesday 23rd October 2019, the decision to change command at the Royal Bahamas Defence Force in mid hurricane relief as a wave of confusion.

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Comment of the week

THE AUDITOR GENERAL WITH A GRAIN OF SALT

04/21/24 12:44 PM

18 April 2024

This is the statement issued by the PLP’s Chairman Fred Mitchell on the report laid on the table of the House of Assembly on 17 April 2024 about the Jubilee Games and the Carifta Games hosted by the Government of The Bahamas:

It is tiresome to do so but it bears repeating: be careful how newspapers rush to alarmist and tendentious headlines about public expenditure,  without hearing the other side and causing us to rush to ill-founded judgments. When the facts are revealed, we are satisfied that it will be clear that the deliberate and destructive innuendo of public malfeasance by the newspapers, is misplaced and maliciously conceived.

Without getting into facts and figures, our supporters  and Bahamians of goodwill should consider the following including some probative questions:

Did the newspapers ask the Minister who is responsible to Parliament for Sports for a comment, before printing the sensational headlines?

A similar question could be asked of the Auditor General, who would know that the principle in Bahamian administrative law is that where an authority proposes to make an adverse finding against an entity or person, the proposed finding ought to be put to the entity or person for that person or entity to respond.

Was that done in this case?

The public ought to be reminded that an audit is only a snapshot of what the Auditor found on the day or days they showed up for the audit.

No doubt the Auditor General is familiar with governmental budgetary practices. A notional figure is often put in a budget to create a line item in anticipation of multi-year expenditure. That therefore does not mean that when additional sums are allocated that there was an overspend. Such an allegation or conclusion would be misleading.

In light of what was released in this statement, one hopes that there is now a clearer understanding of what transpired.  Our expectation is that the sensational headlines are the usual rush to ill-founded and sensational judgments, motivated only by the wish to sell newspapers and guided by the creed: do not let the truth interfere with a good story.

Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 20 April 2024 up to midnight: 510,363;

Number of hits for the month of April up to Saturday 20 April 2024 up to midnight: 1,477,857;

Number of hits for the year 2024 up to Saturday 20 April 2024 up to midnight: 6,872,360;

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Editorial

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PETER TURNQUEST IS NOT VINDICATED BUT CONDEMNED

04/21/24 12:39 PM

Peter Turnquest, the man who lost his job as Deputy Prime Minister under the hapless Hubert Minnis as Prime Minister, has dreams of sugar plums dancing in his head.  As reported in The Tribune on 15 April 2024, Mr. Turnquest says that the action brought against him of conspiracy to defraud by Willaim Kaiser his former business partner in the now defunct Sky Bahamas, failed and that he  (Mr. Turnquest) had overcome.  That is fanciful.  The judgement is not a vindication.  He stands condemned of breaching his statutory duty as a fiduciary.  The judge accused him of lies and inconsistencies.  How he can claim victory is beyond us. Read the words for yourself in the judgement.  We don’t think that Kwasi Thompson has anything to worry about from Peter Turnquest who is obviously delusional in hoping to get the FNM nomination for East Grand Bahama again. In the Judgement, Peter Turnquest is referred to as the First Defendant. Here is what The Tribune reported:

: “The evidence of the first defendant is riddled with inconsistencies. Some of it appears to be hapless fabrication and parts, in my view, were recently-fashioned.” 

However, the judge found that Mr Turnquest breached his fiduciary duty to Alpha Aviation, as one of its directors, over the deed of release with Mr Kaiser asserting that he was “attempting to justify the unjustifiable”. The former deputy prime minister argued that there could be no breach because his actions were approved by the Sky Bahamas principal.

 “I find that the first defendant procured the execution of the deed of release without the knowledge of the beneficial owner, the other director of the company,” Justice Card-Stubbs found. “I find that he acted alone – without the knowledge of Mr Kaiser…. The actions of the first defendant do not reflect the conduct of a director required to ‘act honestly and in good faith with a view to the best interests of the company’.”

She branded Mr Turnquest’s explanations as “fraught with inconsistencies and internally illogical”, and said it would be expected that companies retain collateral to secure loans they have made unless the Board of Directors determines otherwise.

 “A prudent director acting in the best interest of the company would have either sought to ensure that the loan was paid off at the time of the execution of the deed of release or that substitute collateral had been secured. Indeed, this is what the first defendant indicated that he attempted to do. This is what he did not do,” Justice Card-Stubbs ruled.

 “I find that the first defendant, in procuring the execution of the deed of release, and in executing same himself, acted against the company’s best interest. As a result, I hold that the first defendant failed in his fiduciary duty to the company to act in its best interest.

 “Additionally, the first defendant by his own admission was aware that the plaintiff did not have the requisite approvals and permits to carry on the business of lending/investments in The Bahamas and any investments made must have received approvals of the Central Bank of The Bahamas.

 “However, the first defendant proceeded with Mr Kaiser to enter into a mortgage agreement with the second and third defendants which also amounted to a breach of both his fiduciary duty and his duty to exercise due care, diligence and skill.”

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ANTI ISREAL IS NOT ANTI-SEMITIC

04/21/24 12:34 PM

The President of New York’s Columbia University being pilloried by the U S Congress

The lobby for Israel has been active in the United States and throughout the world seeking to justify the existence of the state of Israel which was carved out of the home of the Palestinian people, after the collapse of the Ottoman empire, to assuage the guilt of the western world, for allowing Hitler to murder 6 million Jews and the west did nothing about it,  Now Israel exists, and the Palestinians have been pushed off their homeland.  They have been seeking to establish their own state but despite UN resolutions, the United States has been blocking it.  The West has allowed Israel to bomb these poor people into the stone age, reminiscent of the treatment that the white South Africans wrought upon Black people in the apartheid era.  Last week the President of Columbia University in New York was subjected to one of these gotcha hearings of the U S Congress and was asked the question, the answer for which might cause her to lose her job. She was asked if the expression “ from the river to the sea “ was antisemitic.  The answer is that it is not.  But in the current climate, she was bamboozled into saying that it was.  The point is that this is McCarthyism anew.  Being anti-Israel is not being antisemitic.

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FELIX SANDS WRITES ON GRAND BAHAMA

04/21/24 12:31 PM

Grand Bahama:  A Diamond in the Rough

 Grand Bahama can be described as a diamond in the rough, unpolished.  The island sits 61 nautical miles east of West Palm Beach Florida; in the centre of the island sits the City of Freeport, the second city which is controlled and managed by the Grand Bahama Port Authority.  This rough diamond has never been cut or polished bringing out its full beauty and full potential.

 The last population census indicated that Grand Bahama has lost five thousand residents.  Since then, the numbers have continued to decrease; some young professionals have relocated to Canada, the United States, while others have sought job opportunities in Nassau, Bimini, Eleuthera and Exuma.  This is today’s reality.

 The demolition of vacant buildings, the closure of factories due to high energy cost, and the collapse of a Pharmaceutical company speaks to the further decline of the city.

 The Grand Bahama Port Authority, the franchise developer of the city holds the 99-year lease for the City of Freeport under the 4th August, 1955 Hawksbill Creek Agreement with 30 more years left; when the lease comes to an end, the city reverts  to the Bahamas Government. 

 The Port Authority, the principal shareholders, in recent years, have skilfully divested themselves of its key wholly owned subsidiary companies; when they were grouped together as a single unit, the city had a competitive edge to compete as an investment hub that made the city work. This enabled them to attract foreign direct investment. These parts included the power company, garbage company, the road building company, the harbour company and the Grand Bahama Airport which was damaged during the passage of Hurricane Dorian.

 The selling off of these key assets might be interpreted as a material change to the Hawksbill Creek Agreement without the consent or involvement of the licensees and land owners. The agreement states that any changes must have the approval of 4/5 of the licensees. This might be argued to be a violation of the agreement.

  Today, the Grand Bahama Port Authority can be likened to a house stripped of all its essential fixtures and fittings; a shell of what was first envisage, the only assets left are the Utility Company, and the Development Company( land holding) and the ability to License.   In other words, they have taken an old car and sold off the individual parts for maximum value for the owners. 

 The infrastructure of Freeport has  suffered due to natural disaster and the derelict neglect of the Lucayan waterways; while other areas like the widely used roads have come to the end of its useful life.  The city is in need of urgent attention; it remains to be seen if the GBPA has the financial ability to provide the capital to set the city straight and continue as a viable going concern.

The selling of the Grand Bahama International Airport from an optic point view is a key component of the development of Freeport, and pocketing the insurance payout speaks volumes to the direction of where the owners are headed .

The government of the Bahamas must not allow a slow moving liquidation by the GBPA to take place. The government must use all the tools at its disposal including reimbursements to cause the Port Authority post haste to live up to its fiduciary responsibility under the terms of the Hawksbill Creek Agreement for the City of Freeport.  Borrowing a Bible verse, 2 Kings 7:4. (“if we stay here and do nothing the (city )will surely die …

Prime Minister Davis, your Administration is standing On Solid Ground, do not blink with these recalcitrant shareholders.

The alternative is the tax payers of the Bahamas will be left with an empty greasy bag paying the price to rebuild Freeport.

“To be  forearmed is to be prepared”.  The long lens of history is watching

Felix A Sands 

 P O Box F42042 Freeport 

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SCENES: GRAND BAHAMA PORT AUTHORITY FREEPORT NEGLECT

04/21/24 12:29 PM

Roads unpaved

Ramps unrepaired

Broken sea walls

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REV KEITH RUSSELL ON THE GRAND BAHAMA PORT AUTHORITY

04/21/24 12:23 PM

Breaking silence

The Honourable Rev. Fredrick McAlpine, who has long been silent, has chosen this moment to speak; perhaps, hoping to gain some political millage. However, he has miscalculated and his comments are profoundly ill-advised.

In the first place, he seems not able to make the distinction between the hundreds of millions that the Grand Bahama Port Authority are required to pay in taxes and the amount the company owes the Government for the services The Gov. provides for Freeport, which, according to the infamous Hawksbill Creek Agreement, is the responsibility of the GBPA. Of course, his attempt to compare the Albany project, Baha Mar and other projects with The GBPA is laughable. The aforementioned companies have no such quasigovernmental agreement.

In addition, this impoverished and antiquated notion that there is something so magical about Freeport that the government of The Bahamas can’t successfully managed it is offensive and erroneous. The honorable Rev. cites as example the outskirts of Garand Bahama, which is under the management of the Government, as examples of successive Governmental failure.

Yet, these settlements are successful in their own right. The inhabitants area proud people; they don’t want to be like Freeport. Any Gov. assistance that comes to them, which they have received in good measure over the years, they want it to be in the context of who they are, maintaining the uniqueness of their settlements.

Nevertheless, the Bahamas has been a stable nation economically and politically since its independence. There has been some failures and there is a lot more to be done. However, to claim that successive Governments, which have been able to maintain a stable nation, can’t successfully run one city is nonsensical.

Moreover, less we forget, these double lane roads and canals and the power company and other amenities were not built for us. We are only enjoying these bounties because of Prime Minister Pindling’s Bend-or-break speech.

I am disturb by this fiction that the Honourable Rev. propagates. This notion that the former masters were better than the present masters. The racial apartheid which P.M. Pindling had to break did not occur under the present masters. It happened under the old masters that the Hon. Rev. wants to glorify. This myth of the benevolent master is so ingrained in our psyche that it is counterproductive to us freeing ourselves from mental slavery. It is inexplicable to me that in 2024 we black people are still engaged in a conversation about who is the most benevolent master. Unfortunately, we are still inundated with those whom Malcolm X referred to as House Negroes.

How about no masters at all. How about we Bahamians determining our own economic future. I don’t think that the people who run the port are smarter than I am. I can run a successful city. And there are many persons in Grand Bahama and in the Bahamas who are much smarter than I am, who actually care about people over profits, who can do a much better job than I or the present delinquent managers of GBPA. Why are we still willing to hand over our future to these people who have no responsibility to we The People. At least when a private citizen like myself is in charge or the government, when either of us mess-up we can be fired. Why are we still behaving seventy years later as if the GBPA is the only entity capable of managing the city of Freeport? This is ludicrous!

I am so tired of these politicians and private citizens insisting that just because they give us fish and cucumbers and onions and garlic we should be comfortable and satisfied with remaining in Egypt. I know that the Gov. says the GBPA must pay, and they should, then lets move on. I agree.

Still I, for one, want to get the hell out of Egypt. I want to plant my own corn and sit under my own juniper tree. And if my crops fail, I will plant again. I am tired of crumbs from the master’s table. I want ownership; I want my house back.

In the end, though, you can’t free a person who doesn’t know that he is a slave; or who has some incentive to remain in servitude.

I write; you decide

________________________

Rev’d Dr. Keith A. Russell

Pastor

First Baptist Church

Freeport, Bahamas

242-352-9224 (office)

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THE ANTI GANG BILL PASSES THE HOUSE

04/21/24 12:18 PM

The Government moved and passed a bill to ban the support and membership of gangs in The Bahamas.  This is a drastic move for the advocates of constitutional projections and comes fraught with danger.  The Prime Minister Philip Davis in defending the move said that the times demanded strict action to protect the country and to protect the young men from themselves.  The legislation was debated on Wednesday 17 April 2024.  It now goes to the Senate.  Leader of the Opposition Michael Pintard was concerned that parents who were entirely innocent would end up being the victims of this, unintended because they might know their children are in gangs but under the bill will bear some responsibility for allowing it.

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Letters to the editor

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In passing

THE FNM SINGING THE GRAND BAHAMA PORT AUTHORITY’S SONG

04/21/24 12:13 PM

Up from the political grave arose former MP Frederick McAlpine.  When he was serving in the House of Assembly under former Prime Minister Hubert Minnis, he used to have quite thoughtful and challenging interventions.  So some of us paused to hear what he had to say at his live press conference on 15 April 2024.  Alas, he spoke rubbish in defence of the indefensible Grand Bahama Port Authority.  The Grand Baham Port Authority cannot even finish the bridge to East Grand Bahama, not to talk about their abandoning the airport to the Government for one dollar, yet Mr. McAlpine and his fellow travelers in the FNM say they wish the PLP to do nothing.  They want the place to continue to sink. It is sad.  We hope he gets the political donation from the Grand Bahama Port Authority since he and the FNM are singing the Grand Bahama Port Authority’s anthem so loudly. We hope that the FNM decides that he can get their nomination this time.  But no matter what: cut ass is coming.

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DON SAUNDERS: WE WILL MEET YOU IN THE MORNING

04/21/24 12:10 PM

In a moving ceremony at St Agnes Anglican Church on Friday 19 April 2024, in Grants Town, where his foster father Archdeacon Cartwright is the rector, and conducted by his Lordship the Bishop Laish Boyd, Don Saunders at 49 years old, killed in cold blood by two knuckleheads, was laid to rest.  He was buried in St Agnes Cemetery.  The funeral was a state recognised funeral, and the Prime Minister Philip Davis was there, representing the state.  The younger Cabinet members and Parliamentarians, his contemporaries, and the FNM leadership were there.  A sad ending, to a life well lived. We will meet you in the morning.

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TRYING TO SULLY THE PLP’S SUCCESS IN SPORTS

04/21/24 12:07 PM

Sports Minister refutes the claims of the FNM and the Auditor General about an overspend

People have asked why is it that the Auditor General whenever the PLP is in power is able to simply fly in from the top, without notice and audit your books, then issue a “ gotcha report”.  The question was asked again last week when a report was tabled in the House of Assembly on Wednesday 17 April 2024.  The report was an out-and-out attack, at least as interpreted by the intrepid Bahamian press, as an accusation of malfeasance and misappropriation of funds by the PLP government in the support of sports.  They used the word “overspend” in the papers but what they meant was “tief”.  The Auditor General is an established constitutional post.  That post has the same protection as a Judge of the Supreme Court, so effectively the person cannot be removed except for cause. We send this message.  The FNM and their allies are embarrassed at the successes of the PLP in sports.  The FNM was a complete and abject failure in sports. What do they do then?  They sully the sports accomplishments by saying the PLP stole money.  It is the oldest trick in the books.  The people of the country should not fall for that trick again.

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Lowell Mortimer Honoured

04/21/24 12:03 PM

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A Visit With Shippen Bright and Holly Ulrich In New Hampshire

04/21/24 12:00 PM

Fred Mitchell paid a courtesy visit to Shippen Bright and his wife Holly Ulrich in their hometown in Exeter, New Hampshire, USA. Mr Bright, a navy veteran and fellow Kennedy School, Harvard University alum of Mr Mitchell, is a long time friend and benefactor of The Bahamas with support for environmental projects in Small Hope Bay, Andros. Most recently in 2019 was a Fulbright recipient at the University of The Bahamas and his wife Holly ran the World Central Kitchen programme in Nassau in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian. The visit was simply to acknowledge the friendship and to say thank you. 18 April 2024

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Police Men  Go For Training

04/21/24 11:58 AM

Fred Mitchell congratulates and with the leave of the Prime Minister and the concurrence of the Minister of National Security and the support of the Commissioner of Police bids best wishes at LPIA to mid-level management officers of the Royal Bahamas Police Force on a one-month leadership course at the International Leadership Program, College of Policing London, United Kingdom. From left to right:
Assistant Superintendent Delvin Davis, Chief Superintendent Ichle Simms, Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell Assistant Superintendent Bernard Ferguson and Assistant Superintendent Freddie Lightbourne. 20 April 2024. Photo by Calvin Brown Jr RBDF

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The re-sealing of the Basketball Court in Fox Hill

04/21/24 10:11 AM

Inspection by Fred Mitchell MP of the re-sealing of the Basketball Court in Fox Hill with subcontractor Leroy Rolle on Freedom Park. 21 April 2024. Looking good.

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Fred Mitchell at the community of St Anselm’s Catholic Church as they marked their feast of title

04/21/24 10:06 AM

Fred Mitchell at the community of St Anselm’s Catholic Church as they marked their feast of title 21 April 2024 in Fox Hill. With Ambassador Joseph Curry, Dwayne Heastie at the barbecue and Linda Demeritte with others in the kitchen. Congratulations.

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Fred Mitchell at the funeral of Carla Penn Lightbourne

04/21/24 10:02 AM

Fred Mitchell at the funeral of Carla Penn Lightbourne at Ebenezer Methodist Church on Shirley St. Formerly of Inagua and Bernard Close off Bernard Rd in Fox Hill. 20 April 2024.

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Fred Mitchell attended the wedding of Brian and Kershea Davis

04/21/24 10:00 AM

Fred Mitchell attended the wedding of Brian and Kershea Davis at St Anselm’s Church in Fox Hill. Congratulations to the happy couple. 20 April 2024 Photos by Calvin Brown Jr RBDF

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