Nassau isn't Moscow or Beijing, but I wouldn't downplay the strategic importance of our nation to the US either. You know that the US is definitely keeping their eyes on Chinese involvement and investment here, considering that we are 50+ miles off the coast of Florida.

Stupid, senseless killing. Unfortunately, it appears that the mentality of this country will never change.

The Brave Davis Gravy Train is all lined up and ready to pilfer what they can from the Treasury. Bad news for them is that there soon won't be anything left to steal.

Honk honk, the clown show continues.

Lol. We needed austerity measures quite a while ago. The problems that we are facing didn't magically appear overnight, we have been on the pathway to economic insolvency for quite a while now. COVID-19 is just allowing the chickens to finally roost much sooner than anyone could have expected.

Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. We, the Bahamian taxpayers, have to pork out over and over for these corrupt governments, yet we hardly see where any of our money goes (except into making politicians fatter). Say what you want about the government of that time, but the country was much better off when politicians didn't collect salaries. Their business fates were tied with the economic outlook of the country at the very least, unlike these jackasses who will get fatter whether the Bahamas sinks or swims.

There is no way these government idiots would ever last a day in the private sector, they cannot even produce a single spreadsheet detailing where our tax money goes. No other ideas than taxing their way out of debt (hint : it won't work when there will soon be no one to tax).

What else are we going to do? An opportunity to develop another industry may happen in the future, but it is not going to ever fully replace tourism. The Sands model called for a two pillar economy based off of tourism and offshore banking. Needless to say, offshore banking died a long time ago. We haven't been on the true Sands model for a while.

$12 billion in debt didn't come from the model, the UBP had budget surpluses when they left power. $12 billion in debt came from the corrupt behaviour of our money loving politicians that we have had since Independence. Easy for them to line their pockets until nothing is left in the Treasury. The chickens of the past 5 decades are finally coming home to roost for the Bahamas.

I don't know how bad it is/was on Grand Bahama, but Abaco has been a nightmare to live on since Dorian passed. Besides all of the above, lawless and anarchy are the norm; you can literally kill someone and get away with it. Breakins and theft is common, and while the government has tried to remedy some of these issues in the past few months, much more remains to be done. It will take Abaco decades to recover from the damage that Dorian has wrought, with or without government assistance.

Dorian is a once in a lifetime hurricane, that is a fact. Even Floyd was minor in comparison to the damage and destruction Dorian wrought. I don't think that the government has a responsibility to pay for everyone's home to be fully reconstructed, but I do believe that some help is in order. It is either you help tens of thousands of people get back on their feet, or you have to deal with them being homeless. Insurance isn't some big end all where the problem just goes away either, know plenty cases where people got stiffed by their companies on the payout. As a matter of fact, many agencies are refusing to issue policies for anything even remotely near the waterfront anymore, which is a big hassle for the second homeowner market.

I think you are severely underestimating how poorly managed the government's response to Dorian was on Abaco. I have family there, and the RBDF took days to even check if they were alive. The first people to check on them were actually UN lol. Do you understand that there is still no running water or power to certain parts, almost a year and a half after passage of the storm? That in and of itself is a massive failure. This government, and the ones that preceded it, are completely incompetent at anything infrastructure related, and even worse, hinder Abaconians who want to go independent. It was amazing how quick the government moved to restore power to certain communities after the second homeowners began importing the necessary infrastructure to give certain communities their own independent electrical grid. The second homeowners have been an aboslute Godsend for the communities that they live in, certain areas only had access to running water, shelter, and electricity because of them. I don't think it is a matter of politicizing as you believe, but just a matter of how horrendous conditions were/are there, with the government not doing diddly squat to fix it for months. Even the trailer debacle was nothing short of poor management from the government. If they were just going to take DNA samples and chuck the bodies in the ground, they could have done that from the later parts of 2019. According to Dr. Sands (when he was Minister of Health), they were supposed to be collecting the samples from right after the storm passed. Almost one year later with nothing collected, so you just chuck them in the ground? Disgraceful. Even then, family members had positively IDed some of those bodies, but the government refused to turn the bodies over for private burial. The government deserves nothing more than an F for how they have managed the aftermath of Dorian on Abaco. An all around failure that has cost them the single Abaco seat that they are going to create when the boundaries are soon redrawn.

Normally I would agree with you that it is not the governments responsibility to worry about private property, but this is a once in a generation storm that completely destroyed pretty much everything on Abaco at the very least, not sure how badly Grand Bahama may have fared. Abaco has contributed millions to the Treasury ever year and received very little in return outside of anything done under the Ingraham administration years, $10,000 is the least that can be done to help our #2 and #3 largest sources of revenue to get back on their feet.

Put it like this, 90% of Nassau would have been dead if Dorian were to have landed there. Itsy bitsy Hurricane Matthew had the entire south flooded, so I wouldn't talk about something on the scale of Dorian. I have heard a lot of hatred and vitriol directed towards Abaconians over the past summer (part of it is to do with race, old wounds never heal), but Nassau better get on it's knees and beg God that they never know what Abaco is living through. No power and water in some areas almost a year and a half after Dorian; Nassuavians wouldn't be able to survive in such conditions. Today it is Abaco and Grand Bahama, tomorrow it could be Nassau. Important for Nassuavians to remember it could be them one day, doesn't hurt to lend a helping hand to people who have lost everything.