All good, though we all know the civil service is overly bloated. So imagine what they could do if they reduced that and then used the savings on providing better service (maybe NHI with good hospitals and clinics, maybe better schools, maybe ensuring no-one goes hungry, hopefully all). This way the tax rate would not need to go up. But if we just increase it as we are so low the level of service would remain the same. Has anyone seen any great change since VAT was introduced?

**"This would inevitably involve new and/or increased taxes, spending cuts or a combination of both to bring the annual fiscal deficit down "** Well we all know what our Governments will choose. Brace for increase taxes, as each Government can never not stop spending so that is not going to happen. Hopefully the straw that breaks our back happens soon.

Or it suggests that you all failed a month ago on the bigger amount.

The title of the article asks a question, which the article fails to answer. There is speculation that the numbers have increased, but no actual data. This is probably one of the most important questions to answer. If we have not seen a general increase in deaths so far this year against the last few years was all the shutdowns worth it. If we have and the shutdowns reduced the deaths then the arguments for the shutdowns is much stronger. Please writer at least answer the question next time.

It is now December. The Virus has been around since March. It took the ERC 6-7 months to show their ideas which was a re-hash of many older ideas (nothing revolutionary), since then nothing. There is no impetus from the government to get anything new going, as they need to work out how it will be a benefit to them first. I for one won't hold out much hope of any real improvements. Also when is the acting Financial Secretary going to become the actual FS? This is getting silly now.

This is all speculation. Can we be given some idea of what the cost would be and the expected benefits. A quick look online showed that some have citizenship given immediately whilst others say residency and then citizenship after X number of years. I saw an article that St. Lucia gets 25% of its public sector funding from this. Who know most may be OK with this idea if it brings in that much a year (doubt it). No point in complaining until we know the deal. As a note the countries that do this vary from St.Lucia for $100,000 to UK for $2 million plus you have to wait 6 years.

Please, the world has never been peaceful and the idea that it was is fanciful. It was always dog eat dog.

They all want to put their snouts in the trough, none of them actually care about Bahamas, only what they can get out of it.

Everybody in it for their own. Nothing will change as too many people are either red or yellow and don't care what their party does.

The cancel culture is right and wrong at the same time. The idea that there should be statues to confederate leaders is asinine. These should never have been put up. I don't expect to see statues of Hitler, they lost get over it. However at the same time there are statues that have history which should be told. But they should tell all of it (the good and bad). Due to Columbus all the people who are in Bahamas are here (most of us would never have been alive if it wasn't for him). However also due to Columbus terrible things happened. Tell that, rename areas of Bahamas after the indians ( i particularly agree with the idea of the Lucayan Sea). Make sure people know the wrong that was done, but also why people at the time thought it was ok to do that. I am sure that in 200 years time there will be stuff we all think is OK which would make people horrified (maybe eating meat, who knows).