By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

TENSIONS between the Grand Bahama Port Authority and the Davis administration continue to brew as the deadline for the former to pay the government $357m or face arbitration proceedings nears, with Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis saying the promises of Grand Bahama will remain unfulfilled without a paradigm shift.

The 30-day deadline concerning the Davis administration’s demand that the GBPA pay money allegedly owed to the government over the past five years ends on Thursday.

Mr Davis told reporters on Thursday that lawyers on both ends will meet soon to discuss the future.

As some criticise the timing of his administration’s tactics, Mr Davis said there would be no better time to force the GBPA to live up to its Hawksbill Creek Agreement obligations.

“Who holds time?” he said. “Who is to determine when is the best time?”

“What I do know is the state of our country is such that the Bahamian people can no longer afford to subsidise the port authority.

“As I have said before, the government is doing what the Port Authority ought to be doing by the arrangements that were entered into in the Hawskbill Agreement, and if they are doing it, then what is the role of the Port Authority?

“And what we are saying, is that it is time for us to sit down, and everyone has agreed that the promise of Grand Bahama has not been fulfilled and that promise is continuing to depreciate and any hope of it ever reaching its potential is perhaps now almost non-existent under the present structure, under the present ownership, and going forth there has to be a paradigm shift and that is where my thinking is.”

Mr Davis said the Bahamian people will not bear the burden of the feud.

“Right now, the Bahamian people are paying for services in Grand Bahama in the Port for which the Port should be paying.” he said. “Should we continue that? That’s the question you ought to ask themselves.”

The GBPA has said the government’s payment demand is ill-founded, arguing that Freeport’s $200m annual tax revenues far exceed the government’s investments in the city.

Some, including former Free National Movement (FNM) Pineridge MP Frederick McAlpine, have argued that if the GBPA is forced to pay the government, the burden will fall on Freeport residents through increased fees.