This whole issue is instigated by the real estate agents and hotels who are not getting anything out of the people who use AirBNB rentals so they wanted to ensure that not renting from or through them becomes as unattractive and as difficult as possible for the small timers who are trying to make a few dollars through AirBNB. Do landlords pay VAT on the rents that they collect? Like someone said above, more red tape to doing business in the Bahamas, more inconvenience, more time wasting, more restrictions on free enterprise, more opportunities for graft. This amounts to the government attempting to provide a solution where there is no problem. Fits right in with removing/reducing duties on salmon, etc. Makes one wonder where the FNM are getting their advice from - crazy PLP civil servants who have no interest in the government being successful with its agenda or big time monied supporters who have no interest in poor folks and only see this as "their time" to "get what's due to them" now that "their people" are in power. Careful D'Aguilar, not everyone sees these things through your glasses. Remember the old adage, follow the money - then ask, who benefits the most from imposing this new "tax"?

Yeah well only Dread Fred put his usual stupid interpretation on what Manchester had to say in his attempt to impress the people responsible for confirming his appointment. Americans have significant investments in the Bahamas, the Bahamas has close geographical proximity to the USA and has been/is a potential route for the transshipment of dangerous drugs and illegal immigrants. Given these and other factors, the USA as always will protect its political and citizens interests above all else. Reminds one of the Chris Rock movie where he became the Democratic nominee for US President and his opponent was famous for saying (almost in Trumpian fashion) "God bless America and no one else". It's all about them and God help everyone else.

Is there some kind of vigilante force at work in Nassau, killing off criminal defendants so as to circumvent the courts and the trial process, exacting their own justice? Reminds me of a Clint Eastwood movie where this was the plot line. What we don't hear from the Police or the Attorney General is the numbers of persons arrested, charged and actually convicted for these random shootings and gun murders. So 100+ people were murdered in 2016 - how many persons were actually arrested and charged for each of those crimes and how many are still open investigations? How many of those arrested and charged for such crimes in 2016 were convicted and sentenced? How are the guns, particularly handguns, getting into this country and what are the Police and other Security Forces doing to close off these avenues?

The Bahamas Government has serious problems regarding how it is going to establish any degree of recognition as the lawmaking body for Freeport. I agree with Smith QC that they cannot give the GBPA or its licensees carte blanche on the renewal of any provisions of the Hawksbill Creek Agreement. It is time for the government to establish what it's true role is in the entire gbpa/hca process. If I was PM Minnis or DPM Turnquest, I would conduct the same verification process with the GBPA licensees as is being carried out with civil servants. We keep hearing that there are 3,500 such licensees but the real issue to me is how many of them are actually in operation. Government has problems with companies like Cable Bahamas alleging that the Communications Act does not apply to them in Freeport and GB Powrer alleging that the Electricity Act does not apply to them anywhere in Grand Bahama. The country cannot have a situation where these and other national statutes apply to everyone except GBPA licensees. This is the time for the government to right the ship of state and get definitive clarity on how national laws apply within the Port Area of Grand Bahama. To my mind, it's stupid anyhow to have a free trade zone that covers thousands of acres and an entire city. Other free trade zones or free port areas in other countries are small in area, fenced in, manned by armed guards, have restricted access to the persons who work there or supply services to the tenants and are primarily for the export of duty-free manufactured goods. Time to rethink this whole concept and stop giving away everything including the kitchen sink to a concept which obviously needs refining from top to bottom 72 years after it was invented. Can't keep grafting minor changes onto an old bottle while trying to force new wine into it.

BoB can't close, at least not now. It is the only bank that will provide services in areas in the Bahamas which the Canadian banks no longer consider profitable. After effing up the bank, it's easy for you Nassuvians to say "close it down, it's essentially defunct". However, all Family Islanders are entitled to the same quality and level of services as Nassau. So, yes open a branch in a place like Bimini but it doesn't have to have a full complement of staff or necessarily offer loans right out of the gate. Either that or look at offering more electronic services that are less manpower dependent. Serious, if necessary merciless, efforts must be made to collect as much as possible on the delinquent loans.

Dread Fred is beyond delusional and this article proves it. Fred equates the prosecution of his former colleagues to "... every little faux pas and every exercise of judgment and every little management issue you’re involved in suddenly becomes criminal and you then turn on your political opponents and use the state to imprison them and to bad mouth them and to create a bad image of these people across the country". Yes Fred the "faux pax and ... exercise of judgment" is apparently that Smith, Dorsett and Gibson decided to extort money and take bribes from people that they had given contracts to while in political office. The decision on whether these events actually happened will be left to a judge and jury to decide, based on proof beyond reasonable doubt. Mitchell and Brave and Munroe forget that when they were in power between 2012 and May 2017 there was no public outcry from any of them over the way that anyone and everyone charged with a crime was handcuffed and manacled and made to do the shuffle on TV from South Street Police Station to the Magistrates Court or the Bank Lane Shuffle from Cental Station to the Supreme Court, so what makes it a witch hunt or any different simply because Frank Smith, Kenred Dorsett and Shane Gibson now find themselves before the courts on some serious charges? Fred and Brave know that these charges only arise because the people who were allegedly asked to pay the bribes or who were allegedly extorted presumably gave the Police statements, evidence and information upon which such charges are based. Or doesn't this country operate on or believe in the rule of law anymore? Fred can tit-for-tat that if and when he ever gets back into power but obviously he and Brave believe in one legal system for everyone else charged with a crime and a kinder, gentler legal system for ex-PLP MPs that differentiates in their favour based on their perceived status and does not subject them to the same rigours as the ordinary criminal defendant.

The Bahamas government owns 51% of Aliv while Cable Bahamas, Huawei and possibly others own the rest. Cable Bahamas is responsible for managing the company. Minnis could sell some or all of the 51% to take the government out of majority ownership. Same thing with BTC: selling 9% was Ingraham and is 6 years behind the times. To demonstrate how serious they are to divest ownership they should sell 20% or 25% of BTC.

Mudda: he was appointed by the PLP. Like Perry, he's trying to come up with something as his legacy for a generally lacklustre and unproductive tenure where mobile liberalization will be the only claimed accomplishment.

For this proposal to succeed, the Bahamas would have to become as sophisticated as those Bank of America commercials we see on TV where you scan a check and deposit it in your account or the other TV commercial where the guy scans his smartphone in front of a cash register and the cost of whatever he is purchasing is deducted from his bank account just like a debit card. The smartphone then becomes the means to carry out banking and payment transactions.

However, as one writer points out most Family Islands don't have Internet, much less the high speed internet or Wi-Fi that such a program would require. And this proposal coming from the same geniuses at URCA who have said that they are postponing further work on the Universal Service Obligations on BTC and Cable Bahamas, which required Cable Bahamas to have high speed internet in every island in the Bahamas (but so far they only have it in parts of the 4 islands where they provide digital TV services) and for BTC to have dial-up internet everywhere as well, although BTC says it hardly provides dial-up anywhere now and seems to be on the way to providing fibre to the home in order to further its Flow TV service. The other issue to resolve is trust in the system, that my deposits will show up, that I won't have fraudulent or double charges deducted from my account, that my account or the bank won't get hacked, who and how do I contact the bank if there's an error or a problem, how quickly will my problem get resolved without any physical person or building to go to when they want to complain? Can the banks or phone companies recoup their investment and how long will it take? What kind of an uptake will it have? Lots of questions, few answers at this time.

The last new car I bought more than 10 years cost me around $20,000 at the time. You can't get a new car for $20,000 from any of these new car dealers and the Nigerians who have taken over the used car lots want too much for a used car even up to 10 years old. The only way you can get a reasonably priced car is to import it yourself from Japan and these guys want to close that off and force you to buy their over priced used cars. Who is looking out for the small man in this country when it comes to buying small or reasonably priced cars? The government needs to decide if it is going to rely on custom duties or VAT (whether at 7.5% or 15%) as its main form of taxation supplemented by other taxes or whether it wants to get serious about income tax? Bahamians are seriously underpaid in this country as against the cost of living here, whether it's unskilled labour, skilled labour or professionals. We don't mind bringing in expat workers and then paying them grandiose salaries, moving costs coming and going, work permit and residency fees, school fees, rent or living costs, annual bonus, cost of new car or rental car, gasoline allowance, medical insurance, to name a few. What does the Bahamian worker get? Salary, maybe a pension, maybe medical insurance, maybe an annual increase or bonus, maybe a company car, maybe a gasoline allowance and that's pretty much it. Some of these expats live off the extra benefits and bank or repatriate their full salary. The Bahamian? Usually living pay check to pay check trying to stay ahead of the bill collectors and barely able to save anything. Thank God for a bank loan to cover the high end new car cost but don't lose the job or the car is gone.

Evans has no credibility as a unionist and the BCPOU really lost out when they dropped Robert Farquharson as president and replaced him with Evans back in 2008. Evans came to power on the premise that he would have BCPOU representation in URCA, the Bridge Authority and Cable Bahamas. After 9 years, He's batting 1 for 3 and he probably only got the 1 as as a consolation for not getting the PLP nomination to run in North Andros. Tactically he reminds me of Obie Ferguson where they are still using dinosaur tactics when negotiating for their members. Time's have changed but these labour dinosaurs have not kept up with the modern workplace. Collective bargaining and representation still has its place in the workplace but life has to be about more than Christmas ham and turkey.