With the Chinese holding all the leverage and being so opaque this is turning into an unmitigated disaster for the Bahamas. Also we need not believe anymore of Christie's " fairy tales" about good news coming soon. He seems as clueless as potential investors as to what is really happening and powerless to direct the outcome in any meaningful way to the betterment of the Bahamian economy.

Fred Mitchell is an embarrassment and should resign. When will the attorney general bring human rights abuse charges against him? It seems he is the criminal in this sad affair!
As we like to say he should shut up and sit small.

On a serious note Fred Smith is a true national hero and perhaps more important to the preservation of democracy in the Bahamas than anyone else today. This government should be ashamed to hold persons for three years in detention without due process, that is a clear human rights abuse.

Could the commissioner please put this officer on a diet! His belt is groaning in pain and seems on the verge of collapsing under the pressure.

Very good question as Royal bank is the " government's bank " , where the general consolidated fund is and it is in perpetual overdraft. That overdraft is capped at 100 million, although occasionally exceeded depending on the time of the month as the ebb and flows of govt revenue comes in and expenses are paid.

Commonwealth bank could easily replace Royal bank in this function. True it would need to raise capital, but in the current highly liquid environment and given commonwealth's reputation that would be easy. Either a preference share offering or an IPO of additional shares, likely a combination of the two would do the trick. The bank is 100% Bahamian owned, with over 6000 shareholders, three of whom are among the richest Bahamians and own a third of the shares. Why should the government's business and the attendant profits not go to Bahamians?

Think too of the benefit to the Bahamian economy. In the mid 2000's the Canadian banks annual net income was @ 300 million dollars. Imagine those funds not being repatriated away from the Bahamas but circulating in the Bahamian economy. The effect would be massive. Last year our govt had to borrow U.S. dollars to shore up our external reserves which have come under significant pressure. This is key to our one to one peg to the u.s. Dollar. These bonds are at a much higher rate than Bahamian registered stock. Why should we have higher borrowing costs to make foreign banks richer. It makes no sense. Commonwealth bank has over 500 employees, every single one Bahamian. None of the Canadian banks can say that. It is time if we really believe in Bahamians to empower Bahamians and stop catering to foreign banks that are abandoning us.

Whether they walk away is debatable as they are still profitable, especially as they have downsized so much already. If they do walk away the void can be filled by a 100% Bahamian bank like commonwealth bank which is a very well run, capitalized institution whose profits are the envy of the banking industry. Fidelity bank has had record profits the last three years as well, they would love to increase market share as well. That is how capitalism works.

This goes right to the bottom line of the middle class and unemployment in our country. I don’t know how we’re going to arrest this.”

Mrs. Butler Turner must not be that bright. There is a very simple way to deal with this problem and that is to raise the tax rate on repatriated profits of these Canadian banks. This will benefit the treasury by raising revenues, reducing the drain on our precious external reserves and giving the Bahamian banks a competitive advantage. Commonwealth Bank and Bank of the Bahamas will not be outsourcing jobs as these foreign banks are. These Canadian banks have no real allegiance to or care for the Bahamian people, they are simply interested in extracting as much profits from this country as possible while at the same time contributing as little as possible in taxes and job creation. RAISE their taxes NOW. Problem solved.

Is it just me or do others also feel that the sentences judges have been handing down in this country are far too lenient? I understand that there was a plea in this case, so that would lessen the sentence but why are these two convictions for very serious crimes running concurrently?

We have to face the reality that to get a grip on crime in this country we need to incarcerate habitual criminals for far longer periods of time. A police officer in Oklahoma recently was found guilty of several rapes and received a sentence of 235 years! Until judges hand down longer and more appropriate sentences crime can not abate in this country. We have our police commissioner bemoaning the fact that they catch these habitual criminals who are terrorizing our citizens only to see them released by the courts and on the streets the following week. Something has to change and it needs to be begin with our judges.

Total BS. What do we need over 10,000 tear gas canisters for? They need to stop lying to the Bahamian public and taking us for fools.

Where is the transparency and fairness to the Bahamian public? Again we are being disenfranchised. Stock ownership of important companies in the Bahamas is a way to more equitably distribute wealth and in this case it is being denied to the masses and reserved for the select few. Why am I being denied an opportunity to invest in Holdingco? Who is on this select committee and what criteria is being used to select who Holdingco investors will be?

This stinks to high heaven and is slowing down liberalization of the mobile market. An IPO could be held tomorrow, open to the general public and raise in one day the funds necessary to fund holdingco, in fact it would be oversubscribed , just like the port was. But no these shares are only available for the select few who are financially and politically connected. All involved are doing a grave disservice to the Bahamian people.