The first order of Freeport business for PM Christie is to conduct an audit of the agreements between the GBPA and the government, like you would do with any business to get to the roots of the real problems that either have to be corrected or eliminated.Why is it that neither an FNM or PLP administration saw fit to order an audit to find out what in the hell happened to the millions of dollars in shares owned by our Bahamaland's government in the Port? How can you move forward when there is still much to be settled over Freeport and an agreement that was created by the corrupt Sir Stafford and his Bay Street Boys? Why so quick to hold an referendum to legalize the criminal gambling activities but no referendum to permit Grand Bahamians and all natives their say in what should be done and not done with Sir Stafford's old Port agreements?

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Freeport's Death: not possible to exaggerate
Gilbert NMO Morris

The extension of the "benefits of the Hawksbill Creek Agreement" to East and West Grand Bahama is meaningless.
The so-called benefits have long been rendered redundant because the principals of the Port Authority were never nearly as visionary as the document itself; which is in my view, one of the finest legal concepts in the history of development.
If you need a reference point, the entire nation of Singapore is a little larger than the "Port Area" in Freeport. But Singapore is more than 10 times wealthier than all CARICOM nations combined. And Singapore has more reasons than Freeport not to have developed. But they did and we have not. And now we are about to take a great agreement and not use it to get into the most advanced "future-driven" industries in the world. No. We are going to flog Chinese products, like a giant flea market. Think of Steven Jobs. Do you really think he would be trying to build an “Asia-Mart”, or some other for of international “strawmarket”, using the most advanced agreement in the world?
It is disgraceful.
There are other issues also. The Port Authority will have a right of suit to prevent the extension contemplated. The licensees will have a right of suit, if both against the government and if the Port Authority agrees to the extension, again the Port.
Make no mistake however, there is nothing left of the original benefits the Hawksbill Creek Agreement once offered. The Agreement once offered the following aimed at the advancement of trade advantages of a deep water harbour:

i. A Customs' holiday
ii. A Licensing Power
iii. Concessional Self-regulation

Not one of these carries any strategic advantage today. Harbours have deepened all over the Eastern Seaboard and in the Gulf; and even Jamaica. The are now and increasing "free trade zones" in the US, which means the custom's holiday is dead. The immigration benefit, which would have made Freeport an investment magnet, has been dead for years.
While the Bahamas struggles with an unimaginative - bottomfeeding - financial services structure. Freeport offered once the opportunity to be at the forefront of the regional commodities trade - real financial services - which at last check was valued at nearly $250 billion dollars in the Eastern Seaboard, Caribbean Basin region alone.
Additionally, the Licensing power was a source of abuse. If you want an idea of what Freeport was meant to be, look at Qatar and Estonia, both of which achieved their prominence in 15 years, when Freeport has had half a century.
These lazy moves such as "extension" of non-existent "benefits" are part of the mendicant habit we have developed in the Bahamas of slapping are teeth and gums together, and when we hear what we have said, it fires our synapses, with effect that we feel the psychological satisfaction of actually having done something.
That is also the pathos of dementia.

One word best describes today’s Freeport when we are talking about the old Sir Stafford deal(s) that the Royal Commission if Inquiry said was corrupted from its very planning and signing. “Obsolete!” Let's not forget that Sir Stafford entered our Bahamaland into not one but two agreements with Wallace Groves a man who would refer to Bahamians working as domestics and laborers in Freeport as "immigrants from another Island." First, you must understand why the need for two separate agreements before you can understand the second vehicle would be used as the courier of money to the governing power-brokers of the day? Funny how some in the old FNM regime were quick to question who the former PLP administration had done business with. Yet, the natives are well aware that they were surrounded with some of those connected by blood and the at hip with the former UBP Bay Street Boys who had turned over what would later be called Freeport to Groves, a convicted felon.

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