THE FIGHT TO SAVE THE BONEFISH

Confusion is said to rein in The Bahamas about the fly fishing regulations.  The press reports that the Cabinet is split on what to do.  The Tourism Minister has gone and promised the foreign tourist interests that he will have the regs suspended. The Minister for Fisheries supports the regulations. This protects the private second home owners who use their homes as hotels and hire their homes and boats and sometimes themselves out as guides. They pay no taxes to the US or Bahamian governments.  This needs to be investigated.  They have a clever set of front men and women in The Bahamas who are fighting this to protect their narrow financial interests and their foreign partners. The Government needs to check to see whether these foreign interests who own the establishments are paying their fair share of taxes to both the US and the Bahama governments before they go and suspend these regulations.  In any event, the sector that is fighting says that the word of the Cabinet has not filtered down to the public service and the regulations are still being enforced.  This is a good thing but confusion is not good in itself.  The Cabinet must resile from its decision to suspend the regulations.