What I believe is happening in The Bahamas is that concessions in paying stamp tax and vat etc. are given in exchange for bribes. The funds are taken from the public treasury and transferred to the private sector "bag man" lawyer or accountant and distributed amongst the politicians or their offspring in any number of ways.

What an awful article. Ashamed of what???? Go carry your shame to Haiti and fix the country. Our government has every right to adhere to the law!!! The UN needs to go CIC and speak out against Chinese concentration camps. This is just bullying the Bahamas. If the Bahamas became another Haiti, the UN wouldn't care at all. The UN should be ashamed for encroaching on our sovereign right to adhere to the rule of law!!!

Bahamians be ready: China is now in the business of leasing entire islands from small archipelagic countries. In this case the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. I now see what the Speaker's Little Inagua deep harbor reference was about. He was likely tasked with floating an introductory announcement of the deal to the Bahamian people. Be ready Bahamians, the Government will likely lease an entire island to China to do with as they please under a 50 or 90 year lease, in order to secure Chinese financing and loans to recover from Hurricane Dorian. NYT Headline: China Is Leasing an Entire Pacific Island. Its Residents Are Shocked. 11 hours ago

Now, China is moving in with plans to effectively take control.

Under a secretive deal signed last month with a provincial government in the Solomon Islands, a Beijing-based company with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party has secured exclusive development rights for the entire island of Tulagi and its surroundings.

The lease agreement has shocked Tulagi residents and alarmed American officials who see the island chains of the South Pacific as crucial to keeping China in check and protecting important sea routes. It is the latest example of China using promises of prosperity to pursue its global aspirations — often by funneling money to governments and investing in local infrastructure projects that critics call debt traps for developing nations.

This is obviously a condition to being granted aid or the result of lobbying by an NGO. Have you looked at Nassau lately, the place is a dump. My aunt visited and she said it looked like Africa. The whole country has gone to the dogs. This is the last thing we need right now. What about a freedom of information act and campaign finance Reform?

To my knowledge the US does not currently have concentration camps filled with hundreds of thousands, use eugenics and social credit systems, prohibit free speech, bribe public officials and intentionally corrupt the democratic process.

Chinese Loans (Check List)

Does the Project..
Uphold national sovereignty?
Maintain transparency?
Ensure financial sustainability?
Keep locals engaged?
Remain geopolitically prudent?
Protect the environment?
Inhibit corruption?

You can already see the evil political minds ticking how to sell The Bahamas sovereignty and economic future out to the Chinese and exit office with pockets and Swiss bank accounts full. So predictable and inevitable that our people choose the easy way out that leaves the country a debt trapped slave to a totalitarian regime. This article is just greasing the pan to start cooking the books. And who the heck would export our dwindling supply of spiny lobster to China!!!! Same people that would sell Bahamian sovereignty to China probably.

Finally, the Government talking sense.

Wise words Mr. Bowe. With Hurricane Dorian, the Bahamian motto should be: If you don't have it, don't spend it. Learn to make do. Time to put on the big boy pants. Bahamian politicians love shiny new. What's to say another hurricane doesn't hit the same spots next year. We need to wait and see and complete reconstruction in phases.

Repost

So they gonna borrow hundreds of millions from China. Pad their pockets and build shabby crap and leave next election with pockets full and Bahamians more broke than ever before. Why not have the private sector build Abaco back in their own way and time. Let donations do the heavy lifting and not borrow a single dime. We all know that the hurricane damage will cost several billion to fix. We all know that Abaco will take ten to fifteen years to be built back to the way it was before the hurricane. We all know that Government borrowing goes hand in hand with rampant corruption and selling the Bahamian people down the river! We all know that China with their debt trap loans will control the entire country once all the ink has dried. We all know now that Bahamian independence was a complete scam pulled off by carpetbaggers looking to score easy loot and that African governments can best be compared to onions, because all they do is make you cry.