The only way this will work is if they take Bankers idea of encouraging foreign companies to set up.

They will need and support facilities such a food stores other local retailers, restaurants and hotels (they will invite friends and colleagues to come).

That should make the hotel viable and provide the Government with an exit strategy.

It provided a way for the crooked investor to get his approval because he did not mind making ....eeerrrr....contributions to certain individuals.

The more upstanding and quality investor eventually got fed up with the red tap and the lengthy (read ....give me some money to get this approved for you) procedure and gave up.

The Bahamas has lost out to Cayman, Turks and Caicos and so on. They don't have the unemployment that we have.

Under the Customs Management Act Customs has the power to conduct investigations.

So why is there no customs officer at the boundary line by Eight Mile Rock. As one blogger has said he knows that people are buying on another's bond.

Most of this can easily be traced and the guilty parties arrested at the boundary with the bonded goods in hand.

Yet Customs has never done this to my knowledge. They have the power to do so. Yet, Customs continues to harass the business owner who is not the major culprit.

Agreed. It seems that Hutchison is no better than the Chinese Construction Company in Nassau with Baha Mar and the Pointe.

I agree, but that only works well if there is true transparency in government.

They say that places like Norway and Sweden have some of the highest tax rates in the world but some of the lowest resistance to tax by their citizens. This is attributed to the fact that their citizens can see where their tax money is being spent and that they get value for their taxes.

That is why the IMF and those have pushed us to VAT. If they reduce the Customs duties to very little and up the VAT, as they have done in many other countries in Europe, the government can terminate the majority of the Customs officers.

These officers are not doing their job anyway so we may as well change the system, terminate them and save the country money.

Customs is not stretched too thin. Take a look at some of the cars or houses that the officers live in. One former customs officer is reported to have boasted of how much he had retired on.

If customs did their job there would be no problem.

Think it might be the Chinese?

With IT the way it is we need to be thankful that they have not fired the 80 persons and outsourced the services to an Indian company.

Be careful what you fight for. This is global world and a global economy.

Read the PLP constitution. First order of the day "remain in power".

They have always done that at any cost. They do not care about the people just keeping themselves in power. Davis waste of money is clear evidence of the PLP thought process for governing the country.