So these parasitic, blood sucking gaming or webshop people want believe they should be exempt from the lockdown order and allowed to continue on sucking money out of people? That they are being singled out and victimised? Tell these vampires to shut up and sit small. They lucky they even got licenses to run the business that they got because they never should have gotten licenses in the first place. Imagine, giving licenses to run gaming businesses to a bunch of people who was breaking the law for a bunch of years before getting their licenses and making money hand over fist before and after. I don't see what they do for the economy except maybe pay some low-level taxes on their ill-gotten gains. In this time of covid 19, nib and government would be stupid to be giving our tax dollars to people who out of jobs because of the virus for them to go up or down the road from NIB and gamble it away at a webshop. Besides, these guys were never really closed. Yes, the bricks and mortar buildings might have been closed to walk-in customers but their online gaming business hasn't stopped running because of the virus. If you want to gamble with them, then all their customers who have online accounts continued gaming online. Sebas and them should count themselves as lucky. Every one of the gaming licenses should have either been sold at auction to the highest bidders or anyone who wanted to and has the financial and other capacity to run a webshop should have been allowed to apply for a license. Also, the government was shortsighted. They should be licensing shopkeepers and others to sell scratch-off cards or sell numbers for the webshops and make a commission like how the phone companies allow people to top-up anywhere. The country is not making the kind of tax money out of this so-called industry that it could.

No Birdie, please quote accurately. The government spokesperson said: “The prime minister no longer owns shares in Bahamas Ferries effective December 2019." So Minnis has not owned any Fast Ferries shares for 5 months or so, not since the COVID 19 Order as you want us to believe. You have a right to disagree with him and anyone else but at least please try to be honest when doing so. The real issue here is who did he sell the shares to, not when.

There is, under the Legal Profession Act, the concept of "a person appointed to a legal public office" who is a non-Bahamian appointed under Article 117 of the Bahamas Constitution by the Governor-General acting on the advice of Judicial and Legal Services to any public office where the officer is required to possess legal qualifications. It seems to me that both the Ugandan and the Nigerian gentlemen satisfy the charateristics of "a person appointed to a legal public office" as the positions of deputy director of public prosecutions and assistant director of public prosecutions both fall within and are appointed under Article 117 of the Constitution. Accordingly, neither the Ugandan or the Nigerian need to be "called" or admitted to the Bahamas Bar in order to discharge their respective duties as assistant director of public prosecutions and deputy director of public prosecutions. They have been brought here for a particular purpose, to assist with or carry out criminal prosecutions and they should now proceed to carry prosecute accordingly. This matter raises the question of whether a Bahamian attorney going to Uganda or Nigeria has a right to be called or admitted to practice law there without restriction? The argument put forward by the Bar Council is inherently weak as the Schedules to the Legal Profession Act could be amended by the Governor-General to allow these persons and others like them who have not gone through the UK or UWI legal education systems to be admitted to practice law in the Bahamas. The Bar Council should have refused these lawyers on the basis that under the Legal Profession Act and Article 117 of the Constitution, they do not need to be admitted to practice law in the Bahamas in order to discharge the duties for which they were hired.

Their constitution should say how one becomes a member and whether the members are clubs or island associations. The administration should be able to produce evidence of the applications for membership and board minutes when the applications were approved. Ten years worth of audited accounts? Sounds like AIBA is holding these guys feet to the fire.

I first heard about solar energy and renewables at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee. Been waiting since then for the Bahamas to get on the train. Unfortunately, everything here needs the Government to take the lead which they haven't really done even up to now. We are promoting 30% of renewables by 2033 but Hawaii is promoting 100% use by the same date. I don't buy Holdom's argument that we won't make our target. 30% is not that big of a target. The real issue that is being missed is that BEC/BPL will be losing customers and thereby revenue if renewables take hold. Thus there's no incentive in it for them. The National Energy Policy (NEP) being touted by Hold on is defective in that it does not set any yearly or regular goals for renewable energy. So yes it is hit or miss because Government as usual has put the framework in place but not the specific timelines. So you have this 30% goal that does not have any interim stage accomplishments built into it. So there's a long-term goal but no short-term or medium-term measurements. And don't expect much from URCA. Those guys have not created the framework through regulatory documents as to how the provisions in the Electricity Act are supposed to work. They have not created anything regarding the timing and requirements of the approvals processes, etc. The process is supposed to be certain and known but so much is uncertain and unknown that no one knows whether they agree things with BPL and the go to URCA for approvals or vice versa, agree in principle, get URCA approvals and then finalise the agreements. If an SSRG process is taking 6 months to approve, then the question should be why and what is anyone doing about it?

We've had this airline for 40-plus years now but still haven't figured out how to run it like airline. Issues that were a problem back then are still a problem now. Clearly they don't have a contingency plan, a risk management plan, a Business plan, a backup plan. They need sufficient float in their schedule that should something go wrong with one aircraft they are not caught with their pants down and are able to shift an airplane to stay on schedule or bring a spare into use. Come on BahamasAir. The Bahamian public that is subsidising your existence deserves better than they are getting.

If they want to understand what's behind the problem they can do one of two things: (1) utilise the secret shopper/secret tourist concept. Get some black and white Bahamians to travel to Nassau on a cruise ship playing the part that they are not Bahamians. I've done it and even if I don't try to fake an American accent, the Bahamians at Prince George Whatf seem to think because you're on the cruise ship that you're a foreigner and want you to buy this and that or take a tour or whatever oblivious to who they are dealing with. As they talk amongst themselves, they throw around more effing this and effing that and expect people off the cruise ship to not hear all.of this. Well they do hear it and because it's coming from black folks who they don't know, they prefer not to do business with them. (2) Put video cameras and sound recording around Prince George Wharf and the Straw Market and see what the tourists experience. The Straw Market is a dark cavern with many vendors hustling every white face that comes in there trying to sell their wares. Many have not learned the gentle art of the sale. What we have not learned is how we see ourselves is very, very different from how others see us.

These webshop people are the kings and queens of spin. There is nothing that they say that I will ever believe. The customer is paying this tax from monies on their accounts with the webshops. Bet Vegas is so rich they'll make 40 million dollars in new business? And where pray tell does Sebas and Flowers and crew get that data? Seems like the pot calling the kettle black. Does highlight though how slowly Government is moving on either licensing Bet Vegas or putting them out of business.

And replace the duties with? More VAT?

They have people within the WSC who have been to these courses or had the IADB come to the WSC and explain how to reduce losses and improve service and product. Or they could have flown a few Englishmen out here who work at these water companies to explain how they operate; they'd be happy to come to the Tropics for a week or less. Or they could have arranged video conferencing for the Englishmen to explain their system to the Bahamians. How many of Gibson's entourage work for WSC versus sit on the Board?