zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........

The Business Editor, Neil Hartnell, wrote the following which appeared in the November 26, 2024 edition of The Tribune:

>"The Attorney General yesterday confirmed that Shell’s Bahamian subsidiary, which generated $1.6bn in pre-tax profits in 2023, will be subject to 15 percent corporate income tax on those earnings in future.

>"Ryan Pinder KC, in a messaged reply to Tribune Business inquiries, reiterated that imposition of the just-passed Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT) on the energy giant’s local affiliate - as well as other Bahamian entities that are part of major multinational groups - will generate “significant” and much-needed extra revenue for the hard-pressed Public Treasury.

>"Speaking after it was revealed that Shell Western Supply and Trading paid nothing in direct taxes to the Bahamian government on those $1.6bn profits, he explained that the DMTT’s enactment will ensure this nation and its people now receive some benefit from these mammoth earnings.

>"Tribune Business calculations show that the Public Treasury would have received close to $240m had the DMTT, which gives legal effect to the 15 percent corporate income tax, been in place to capture the Shell subsidiary’s 2023 profits. The $240m is higher than the Government’s own estimates for when the tax has been in place for a full year, with forecasts ranging from $140m to $200m."

As a integral part of this LNG terminal facility, our corrupt PM and his doofus AG have no doubt cut a most corrupt deal with Shell Oil's hugely profitable oil trading operation in The Bahamas (known as Shell Western Suppy & Trading or SWST) and various entities controlled by the evil and insatiably greedy Snake whereby the annual 15% Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT) our nation was expecting to receive from SWST will now be significantly reduced. This tax for 2023 would have amounted to $240 million based on SWST's profits for that year.

Yes indeed, corrupt deals are being cut here that will result in our nation's coffers being robbed of mega millions of dollars in annual taxes. Pockets are being lined here at great cost to the Bahamian people. Are the EU and OECD global tax regulators fully aware of what is going on here? Neil Hartnell should be asking the hard questions to the right people and avoid having way too many free lunches and dinners with the evil and insatiably greedy Snake.

Because it's much easier to get the sinister and evil ChiComs out of our country, and do whatever we can to help the US clamp down on illegal aliens and the trafficking of humans, drugs, and arms through our nation into the US. And we had better get serious about doing all of this before a travel embargo preventing US citizens from travelling to our nation is ordered, together with the closing of our US pre-clearance facilities, and the suspension of issuing US visas to all residents of The Bahamas, not just Bahamians.

We need to recognise and accept that all of our nation's more serious problems that have developed over the last 50 years have come our way from our neighbours to the South, not the the one's North. And the ChiComs long ago seized control over many of our neighbours to the South who are closer to the Panama Canal. Need I say more!

RFK not JFK

RFK

Try not to be so stupid. There were competitors in place like Cable Bahamas, Vonage, etc., at the time government relinquished its control of BTC. The same cannot be said about the monopoly control over the supply of electrical power that the conniving Snake and his cabal of greedy marauders would have, with Bahamian consumers having to pay whatever electricity rates they demand while putting up with whatever lousy services they will almost surely provide to boost their pocketed profits.

> The evil and insatiably greedy Snake told Pintard that it is "unrealistic to expect the Government to disclose all relevant information on the same day the deal was signed, the FOCOL chief voiced optimism that all energy-related reforms will ultimately be tabled in Parliament when they are concluded."

this one quote alone speaks volumes about the evil and conniving snake's insatiable greed and his great disdain for the interests of the bahamian people. snake's sole interest is always his very own pocket book with only morsel of his wealth occasionally thrown the way of others purely for publicity reasons alone.

this reptilian monster must be recognized for what he truly is - nothing but a most boisterous and greedy bully. no sensible and right thinking government would ever entertain arrangements that give de facto monopoly control of our nation's vital energy sector to a cabal of wealthy marauders led by snake!!

Bottom line:

The evil and insatiably greedy Snake and his stealthy partner Shell Oil should never in the first place have been allowed to acquire monopolistic control over the supply of fuel to BEC/BPL by their corrupt manipulation (financial and otherwise) of bribable elected officials. Snake and his stealthy business partner Shell Oil were able to accomplish this by way of their various nontransparent arrangements known only to themselves that they have wrongfully kept hidden, not only from the Bahamian people, but also from our corrupt and duped elected officials..

These hidden arrangements are already documented by way of undisclosed agreements between and among various entities controlled by Shell Oil, the insatiably greedy Snake, certain elected officials, and the government as a whole, whereby Snake and Shell Oil they have manipulated, cajoled and/or strong armed the corrupt and dupable likes of Davis, Cooper, Pinder, et al., into somehow thinking it is a good idea to give monopolistic control of our nation's energy sector to a cabal of wealthy marauders, led by the bullying Snake and slimy Tony Ferguson, in what can only be described as one of the most corrupt and outrageous fire sales ever of national assets vital to our small nation's national security interests.

And all of this is being done without proper consideration of better alternatives, without any kind of competitive bidding process, and with no voice on these matters from the Bahamian people notwithstanding that the national significance of the critical decisions to be made here rise to a level high enough to warrant the undertaking of a national referendum.

It is unconscionable that any sitting government of the The Bahamas and the Bahamian people would entertain relinquishing ownership and control of our nation's strategic energy sector to a small cabal of wealthy marauders with Shell Oil, a foreign oil giant, manipulatively working behind the scenes to provide the leverage and coverage to do so. What's proposed here is simply unconstitutional and unacceptable on too many grounds and therefore will need to be undone by the Bahamian people one way or another.

With only my driver's license and/or passport, I could open a bank account with just about any major bank in the US, Canada, UK, and most OECD countries, in less than 15 minutes.

The Business Editor, Neil Hartnell, wrote the following which appeared in the November 26, 2024 edition of The Tribune:

> The Attorney General yesterday confirmed that Shell’s Bahamian subsidiary, which generated $1.6bn in pre-tax profits in 2023, will be subject to 15 percent corporate income tax on those earnings in future.

>Ryan Pinder KC, in a messaged reply to Tribune Business inquiries, reiterated that imposition of the just-passed Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT) on the energy giant’s local affiliate - as well as other Bahamian entities that are part of major multinational groups - will generate “significant” and much-needed extra revenue for the hard-pressed Public Treasury.

>Speaking after it was revealed that Shell Western Supply and Trading paid nothing in direct taxes to the Bahamian government on those $1.6bn profits, he explained that the DMTT’s enactment will ensure this nation and its people now receive some benefit from these mammoth earnings.

>Tribune Business calculations show that the Public Treasury would have received close to $240m had the DMTT, which gives legal effect to the 15 percent corporate income tax, been in place to capture the Shell subsidiary’s 2023 profits. The $240m is higher than the Government’s own estimates for when the tax has been in place for a full year, with forecasts ranging from $140m to $200m.

As a integral part of this LNG terminal facility, our corrupt PM and his doofus AG have no doubt cut a most corrupt deal with Shell Oil's hugely profitable oil trading operation in The Bahamas (known as Shell Western Suppy & Trading or SWST) and various entities controlled by the evil and insatiably greedy Snake whereby the annual 15% Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT) our nation was expecting to receive from SWST will now be significantly reduced. This tax for 2023 would have amounted to $240 million based on SWST's profits for that year.

Yes indeed, corrupt deals are being cut here that will result in our nation's coffers being robbed of mega millions of dollars in annual taxes. Pockets are being lined here at great cost to the Bahamian people. Are the EU and OECD global tax regulators fully aware of what is going on here? Neil Hartnell should be asking the hard questions to the right people and avoid having way too many free lunches and dinners with the evil and insatiably greedy Snake.