Wednesday, November 9, 2016
By KHRSNA VIRGIL
Deputy Chief Reporter
kvirgil@tribunemedia.net
SENIOR Free National Movement members yesterday insisted that they were not concerned or moved by Prime Minister Perry Christie’s threat to reveal documents detailing the previous FNM administration’s efforts to partner with the Chinese for agriculture and fisheries developments, saying this was a mere deflection away from the failures of the Progressive Liberal Party government.
FNM Deputy Leader Peter Turnquest and Long Island MP Loretta Butler-Turner said the troubling concern for many Bahamians is the Christie administration’s affinity for conducting business in “secret”.
While both MPs acknowledged that Chinese investors were engaged in major projects during FNM terms in office including Baha Mar and Hutchinson Whampoa for the revival of Grand Bahama’s economy in 1992 and 1993, they maintained that these dealings were done in a transparent manner.
This, Mr Turnquest said, was a major difference between the current PLP administration and the then Ingraham led government.
“Not at all,” he said when asked whether there was any concern over Mr Christie’s threat to table the documents in the House of Assembly revealing the FNM efforts to partner with the Chinese in the House of Assembly.
He continued: “They are trying to divert attention from their abysmal leadership to date. Digging up all this information from the past is a diversion. Most Bahamians recognise what they are trying to do.
“They are depending on a foreign government to bail them out of their dismal failure and ceding control of large amounts of land and economic activity reserved for Bahamians.
“I think the thing the government misses is this has nothing to do with xenophobia or disliking investments with the Chinese. What we have concerns about is the amount of investment of a state owned nature or influence by the Chinese state.
“With recurrences of this kind, decisions then become entangled in politics and geophysics. We don’t know how that will develop in 20 to 30 years. You don’t want that kind of ownership to be ceded to any state owned entity.
“But no one can argue that the investments of Hutchinson Whampoa wasn’t an economic driver in Grand Bahama.
“If that is what he is pointing to he is being misleading and engaging in back and forth argument. That doesn’t make sense.
“If you talk about the Baha Mar deal and the financing that was arranged by the Export Import Bank at the beginning of the deal because financing was in jeopardy. So that project wouldn’t have been completed if they didn’t find some source of funding.”
Meanwhile Mrs Butler-Turner, who was a part of the last Ingraham Cabinet, took exception to the government’s lack of transparency.
She said the “proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back” was recent controversy surrounding Agriculture and Marine Resources Minister V Alfred Gray. It involves a $2.1bn agriculture and fisheries proposal for Andros by the Bahamas Embassy in China that would involve Chinese investors.
She said: “I think why we are concerned is that everything the government seems to be doing is almost exclusively with the Chinese government. Now we are talking about something as precious as this country’s fishing industry. That is the one that Gray has said he gave his consent to discuss. That is the proverbial last straw.
“We have no difficulty with Bahamians being able to harvest fish and to be able to export. If they are going to have a discussions this is way advanced and that is frightening.
“Fifteen per cent of the Chinese diet is made up of sea food protein they have over fished in their part of the world. Their mechanisms are alien in the way we fish in this country.
“When we brought the Chinese to this country it was agreed to by an act of Parliament,” she continued.
“The difference between the FNM and the PLP they are making secret deals. I have no fear of what the prime minister threatens to bring. Mr Christie and his administration they have a proclivity for doing things in the dark. That is what is most troubling.”
In the House of Assembly on Monday, Mr Christie revealed that the previous FNM administration held talks with the People’s Republic of China and private Chinese companies through the Bahamas State Investment Administration Bureau for projects and co-operatives, which included Crown land acquisition.
However, he stopped short of tabling the documents, and instead invited FNM Leader Dr Hubert Minnis to review the files so that he could be informed without “having to make it into some ridicule of a nation”.
Comments
ohdrap4 says...
> “having to make it into some ridicule
> of a nation”
Elvis has left the building, my man!!!
Posted 9 November 2016, 9:40 a.m. Suggest removal
Well_mudda_take_sic says...
Hopefully Crooked Christie will fail miserably in his deceitful effort to paint the great majority of Bahamians who are rightfully concerned about the sovereignty, national security interests and natural resources of their country as somehow being anti-Chinese. I can just hear Crooked Christie joking with Fweddy Boy Mitchell that granting Bahamian citizenship to 20,000 applicants from Red China (in exchange for their loyalty to the PLP) is all that needs to be done in order to keep the balance of political power in favour of the PLP for many years to come. Crooked Christie has turned to an old page in Pindling's political play book on why the Haitianization of the Bahamas was necessary to tilt the balance of power in favour of the PLP as he now contemplates doing essentially the same thing, but this time with a voting block of at least 20,000 new Chinese-Bahamian voters loyal to the PLP. First will come the grants of thousands of work permits to citizens of Red China, to be quickly followed by most the work permit holders receiving Bahamian citizenship. Yessiree fellow Bahamians, Crooked Christie is hell bent on selling our sovereignty, national security interests and natural resources to the Red Chinese lock stock and barrel to satisy his insatiable greed for political power and great personal financial wealth!
Posted 9 November 2016, 10:34 a.m. Suggest removal
Really___ says...
Really
Posted 9 November 2016, 12:16 p.m. Suggest removal
TalRussell says...
Comrades! Let Hilary's failure last night to recapture the presidency for the democrats be a lesson to all Free Movement Party members who keep insisting that they are not concerned or willing to break ties with Papa Hubert's regime. Not even the warning signs voices of and by the 2017 electorates threats to reveal them for their affinity to stick it out as the same Papa Hubert party of the past, seems to bother them. Why today's reds would want to align their future governing prospects with what Papa may have or may not have done with the Chinese, or any other foreigners behind closed doors, should baffle the hell out of many.
Wouldn't you think that any of the more senior red shirts would not have so easily forgotten how Papa Hubert, ran his "one man" show while they were forced into remaining "silently" seated around "his" cabinet table. How they were even left in the dark over the sale of BTC - even to the extent that if they opposed the sale to the foreigners (foreigners hand picked by Papa) that Papa Hubert actually threaten their House under his threat openly delivered on the floor of the Peoples Honourable House of Assembly to call an snap General Election - which meant he Papa Hubert would not be signing no red shirts nomination papers, for any their opposing the sale of BTC backsides.
Posted 9 November 2016, 12:25 p.m. Suggest removal
banker says...
I had a comment about your comment, but I don't have the energy to correct your Trumpisms. As a matter of fact, I am too discouraged about the state of the nation to vehemently state anything political anymore. It is all too much.
As an FYI, I have a permanent residency card for a civilised country (no the Bahamas is not a civilised country. Nor is it enlightened.). It pains me that I have such equanimity about the atrocious state of governance, the level of endemic corruption, and the general brutal "animal nature" of the PLP towards the Bahamas. They are all sub-humans, and there is not a shred of patriotism in the bunch. It is disturbing how easily they lie. Their behaviours are disturbing, and not one in a hundred thousand gives a damn.
Also as an FYI, do you know the Reverend Patrick Adderley? Get to know him. Ask him about the state of BTC during the Hubiggity era before it was sold. He is a man of the cloth, and he will not lie to you. As him about the corruption of the man at the top, who is a PLP crony and now has regained a high position. Ask the Reverend Adderley about the sweethearting, the siphoning of funds, the kickback graft contracts. He was on the board of BTC and he will tell you. It needed to be sold to clean out the cancer of corruption. And BTC was a microcosm of what is today in the government, the civil service, the police, everywhere. We are a rotten country, with mostly wutless peoples and no moral compass to be had anywhere, but a large majority are psalm singing donkeys. Our national trait is hypocrisy, and it sickens the soul.
Posted 10 November 2016, 10:06 a.m. Suggest removal
sealice says...
One thing i don't understand is that the biggest racist and xenophobe of the whole Chrispy Crew Mr. (right said) Fweddy Mitchell hasn't said BOO about dis..... dat's how bad these secrets stink they have shut him of all people up!
Posted 9 November 2016, 12:59 p.m. Suggest removal
SP says...
**........ We Need To *"Drain The Swamp"* To Expose & Rid Ourselves Of These Pirates ........**
PLP & FNM are laughable, cut from the same cloth, untrustworthy and equally inherently corrupt!
A forensic audit of the countries affairs with full public disclosure starting with office of PM is required to determine real facts from fiction, identify pirates and deal with them accordingly.
They have proven not to believe in Bahamians, we are not even considered, never mind anywhere near first, and they've failed miserably with every matter of trust imaginable!
**Go to hell PLP & FNM**
Posted 9 November 2016, 3:45 p.m. Suggest removal
BahamaPundit says...
No. They do consider us. They see us as the competition. Better they get the bribes before anyone else does. So, yes, we are considered. They consider us opponents, enemies!
Posted 9 November 2016, 8:18 p.m. Suggest removal
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