Many of the merchants on Bay Street got greedy during the 70's and 80's by paying off certain persons on each cruise ship to send the passengers to their shop.

The Bahamas Chamber of Commerce formed the Duty Free Promotion Board which, amongst other things tried to regularize the dealings with the cruise inustry so that Bay Street would not become what it has. The majority of the mercahnts would not cooperates as they thought that they couuld handle the cruise lines on their own.

Then you had others who were happy to "front" for the foreign jewelry merchants.

Bay Street doesnot need any tax breaks, it needs leaders with some brains and b..ls.

Mr. Klonaris is always whinnig.

Spot on.

Just another "over the hill" , "no new ideas", "tired old man" desperatly trying to hold on to power.

This is why we should not allow anymore of their private cruise ports. We should stop all further development, including Eleuthera and Grand Bahama ones that they are talking about now.

No Expanded Disney in Eleuthera, no works in freeport Harbour and no special port for Carnival in Grand Bahama.

All they do is ruin our environment and use our country to make their money.

Too many, way too many old PLP's in the race. Most disapointing. The PLP can and should do better than this.

The old guard needs to let go. They have had their day.

Why not campaigne with and mentor a young new candidate?

The PLP should not be a party with a bunch of old folks with old ideas which have failed us.

The country needs an alturnative to our current poor government and, as it stands, the PLP is no better than what we have.

The only reason this is being done is to comply with the EPA and other agreements which The Bahamas is way behind on.

The idea was to bring The Bahamas into the 21st century by making government (read Civil Service) much more efficient thus improving the economy and the well being of Bahamians.

Problem is that none of it is going to be done properly, as it will cut much of the corruption and slackness in the Civil Service and they are the ones implimenting it.

The government is weak. Also you have to wonder what else they are giving away to RCCL. Maybe it was to get them to invest inFreeport.

By the way tribanon, Scott has had his own law firm for years (10+ I would think). Don't know on what terms he left Callenders.

***"Closing on one before the other would give either Freeport Harbour Company, which is 50 percent owned and managed by Hutchison Whampoa, or the government the power and negotiating leverage to squeeze more concessions from ITM/Royal Caribbean knowing that the joint venture will be increasingly desperate to wrap up negotiations on the last component for its project"***

If the Government had acquired the Harbour, as some suggested, the Government would have had control and not had to wait for Hutchison. Indeed, the Governemnt would have been in control but insted the Government bowed down to Hutchison.

Have to wonder how all this weakness on the part of the governemnt has cost the Bahamian taxpayer.

No they were not banned.

They were removed as a requirement in the late 50's early 60's soas to make the cost of building more accessable to the average person.

Talk about trying to "put a good face on a very bad deal".

Hotel purchase - consept good - deal negligently executed at great cost to the taxpayer

Airport purchase - totally unnecessary - Complete failure to hold Hutchison's feet to the fire - staggering cost to the taxpayer.

A very amaturish attempt by government (especially the civil servants) against a large professional company.

Hutchison wins big and the Bahamian public will be paying for decades as a result of this governments two "Big failures".