All of a sudden Bahamians find out about the words "public consultation" and believe that there should be public consultation on everything before the government takes action on anything but their memories are short on this subject. Pindling didn't believe in public consultation and the closest he came was his white and green papers on independence. Ingraham tried public consultation with his constitutional referendum, get busted over the head and never went near it again. Christie tried public consultation twice, get busted over his head twice and never went near it again. Given his predecessors track record, you think Minnis wants to try his luck on the public consultation wheel of fortune?

The pollsters called me on my home phone. From the slant of the questions I am convinced that their client was the webshops because that was the main focus of the questions. The other stuff about 12% VAT seemed to be a throw-in just to give it an air of legitimacy. Also the limited choice of answers to many of the questions affected how the results would turn out and in some cases would get a response that the pollster wanted. In any event, if you ask 800 or 8000 people "Do you support a tax increase?" what answer do you expect to get? Of course the overwhelming majority will say "No". Ask the same people if they support no taxes and they are mostly going to say "Yes. You get the answer you want based on how and what questions you ask. My college professors called it the use and abuse of statistics.

15 to 20% markup is the rule of thumb. Is Sands talking about the people who call themselves contractors but are really swindlers in disguise dropping out or is he talking about the guys who know the difference between a 2 penny nail and a 2 inch nail? No skin off our noses losing the first crew as they are not really contractors to begin with. When are we going to have certification and even licensing in the building contractor profession. Only thing left is for some ex jailbirds to start calling themselves contractors. Oops, some of them already doing that.

We have plenty quasi Socialism in this country. People don't want to pay taxes, customs duty, government fees but we expect free medical care at PMH from motivated and happy doctors and nurses who are paid well and have the best and latest equipment to work with, smooth roads to ride on, big salary with all kind of perks and pension, police to come fast to our house in new cars when we call, government buildings with the best computers and other equipment and no mold, happy teachers in well maintained schools with all kinds of technology and materials to teach with. The government machine only works if it has lots of money to cover the costs of all the requirements, perks, benefits, etc. That comes from the payment and collection of taxes. If gamblers got money to throw away then let the government get as much of that as possible. The 5% on webshop deposits is coming out of the customers money, not webshops revenues. If Bahamas is joining WTO by 2019 then customs duties will largely have to disappear and be replaced by other forms of taxation, particularly ones that the government is better able to actually collect.

The opposition response to 12% VAT and increased webshops taxes is reminiscent of Chicken Little: "The sky is falling. The sky is falling." I'll bet $100 to Obie's $1 that this time next year not one webshop will have closed or that they will have laid off 3000 people or anything near that number. Things are too sweet for them to cut off their noses to spite their faces. 11% tax was a ridiculously low number and the latest increase ain't really enough but will do and get the people enough in taxes for now. There's nothing discriminatory about this tax increase. Bahamians can't gamble in local casinos and the foreigners don't come over the hill to gamble in the webshops. And the webshops story that gambling companies only pay 15% tax in England ain't true. It's more like 63% because they also pay taxes that go towards sports, arts, culture, antiquities and education.

I challenge Sebas and Flowers and the other webshops to publish their annual audited accounts for each year since they were legalised. I also challenge each of them to publish a list of their real estate holdings, owned and leased, in each island where they operate. When Peter Kruger signed a heads of agreement document in somebody else's name, people were shouting that he had committed the offence of forgery. How is Galanis any different? He's advising the webshops guys to break the law. Where I come from, you pay the tax and sue the authorities in Court for your money back plus interest and costs assuming you can succeed with your case and the judge agrees with you. Clearly the webshops customers have money that they don't mind losing so increasing the taxes isn't hurting anyone except Flowers and Sebas' pockets. What's their beef except they now taking home less than before. 50% of $100 million is $50 million. They can't live off $50 million in a year?

There does not seem to be a coherent plan as to what is top priority and how it should be attacked. So we have any and everybody talking off the top of their head as to what needs to be addressed. I can assure Minnis, KP and Carl that it's not marital rape, over the Hill economic zones, it's not an office for the Wife and the like. People need jobs, need work and need to know that looking out for Bahamians are the high priorities of this government. Minnis those demonstrate that while they wanted to win on election day in 2017, they were not prepared to actually take over and were not prepared to hit the ground running from Day One. They are all over the place like someone with ADD. If they don't understand by now, slogans and ignoring the cries of the people will not ensure their re-election in 4 years time. Old Bahamian saying: if you can't hear, you will feel.

Expect to pay several hundreds of thousands of dollars. Forensic audits don't come cheap. Worse still if you are trying to negotiate the price after the work has been done. Maybe that's why we don't yet know the cost of any of these audits.

Someone ought to let this guy know that lately his columns have become very unfunny. He no longer finds the humour or sarcasm in things that the government in particular says or does. Instead, he's become another political commentator rather than a comedian. We have a plethora of political commentator but a severe shortage of comedians. Once there was Eddie Minnis then Stan Burnside then Naughty. Now there's only Stan Burnside.

The government can go to Jamaica where this type of thing was done about 40 years ago and get advice from them. No way that this has to take 20 years. And the lawyers get their fees for mortgages and conveysnces whether you have a registered title system or not.