In my view - even though I have never gambled in my life - Numbers and Asue are not activities which are meant to be commercialized. They are a cultural practice and are part of that anthropological unsystematic systemisation that is uniquely Bahamian, and is an expression of the failure of our governments to lift their people out of a life of 'quiet desperation'.

In the same manner that in developed countries, ordinary people have chequing accounts and over-drafts as a means of managing and off-setting shortfalls in financial resources, prudence and discipline aided by social trust drives and sustains Asue, and Occultism, irrational optimism and quiet desperation drives and sustains Numbers.

Both of these practices emerged because - as I explained 7-years ago in a lecture at the Rotary Club meeting at East Villa in Nassau - economic activity in the Bahamas has been largely exhibited and exercised in black and gray markets for nearly 300-years. The reason, again, is that - unlike, let us say, Singapore - our governments have failed to educate our people for development, and have failed to apply our resources to lift our people up beyond these practices into a system of life that is suitable, predictable or sustainable, given the resources which have been available to us since we have had majority rule.

Numbers and Asue are proofs of that failure.

As such, I find the discussion concerning Numbers in particular or Gambling general to be a meta-discussion sitting high above the real world truth of our situation; such that it fails to examine or explain what lies behind the popularity of these asymmetrical economic practices; as is typical with us.

Professor Gilbert NMO Morris

Mr. John Bain is brilliant in the questions he raised. And I am happy to see his genius recognized in his forensic analysis of the abovementioned company. It would interest me were he able to conduct this sort of analysis for the Securities Commission of the Bahamas. It is this sort of analysis that will reveal to Bahamians how tenuous our corporate finance and capital market and fund structures are.

Professor Gilbert NMO Morris

I have a certain regard for Sir Ronald Sanders, and I agree with his analysis for the challenges facing caricom nations. However, I cannot concur on the causes being failure of the "single market" or the move toward a 'single economy".

First, even within caricom nations there is no credible strategic market segmentation, or any strategic emphasis that governments have undertaken to create competitive advantages for themselves. That is to say, our nations and their government's do not generally cultivate an industry and grow it into a market leader. (imagine Singapore for contrast). If we cannot do that, if we cannot manage the relationship between the University of the West Indies and the caricom nations, how can or why would anything integrative work?

Part of the nonsense of the CSME for instance is that UWI graduates benefit from free 'movement of labour'. But in the age of the internet, why is that idea floated? Its a pre-internet concept. Moreover, will this not mean that population - the best and brightest - would move from already decimated small nations to larger ones; advancing brain drain?

If caricom is going to be relevant, it will be driven now by commercial interests and by paying attention to the million of young people across the region who cannot enact their innovative ideas because of lack of capital, corruption and the fact the almost every caricom economy is in the hands of a few politically connected people.

Gilbert NMO Morris

Once again, the largest movement in the financial services in the Bahamas is not for competitive reasons; not the result of a niche discovery that exploits a comparative advantage. Instead, once again - this is the fourth time in 35-years - our major effort is to capitulate to external demands, which we could have - not only - anticipated, but we could have cultivated a competitive response.

The financial services in the Bahamas was founded on a whim.

In all these years, we have not exceeded that whim. As I have written elsewhere: "there is a marked difference between being a jurisdiction that offers some financial services and being a financial centre". There is not now and has never been a clear, comprehensive policy on the part of any Bahamian government on financial services. There is no Minister who understood the relationship between financial services and foreign affairs, for instance, or the securities commission and education, or the financial services model and trade negotiations; or better still, financial services and the Hawksbill Creek Agreement.
This is not because our Ministers are not "smart" as we have the habit of thinking when remarks such as those above are made. It is because we have never taken seriously what financial services means, can mean and must mean for the Bahamas.

To put an emphasis on my point: We do not a have a competitive strategy that identifies which 3-5 areas of financial services will define the Bahamian model; even though it is obvious what that should be. In essence, foreign financial "players" came to the Bahamas and they told and now tell us how they will use the Bahamas. We do not have a strategic vision, which they have come to the Bahamas to share. If you go to Finland, you must join with the Finns to understand their strategy on Technologies; if you go to Singapore, the Singaporeans can tell you what they aim at in their financial services, you join them and follow their vision; if you go to South Korea, they have a plan, a vision, if you want to manufacture, you join in with their policies and their vision. They have a strategic programme that runs through all levels of government, national policy, agencies and institutions. In the Bahamas, those coming to exploit our sovereignty have no need to seek our advice on these questions: We follow their lead in our country.

In financial services - as in so many areas - we have been Eli & Esau: we can manage neither our houses nor cultivate and defend our birthrights.

Professor Gilbert NMO Morris

Freeport's Death: not possible to exaggerate
Gilbert NMO Morris

The extension of the "benefits of the Hawksbill Creek Agreement" to East and West Grand Bahama is meaningless.
The so-called benefits have long been rendered redundant because the principals of the Port Authority were never nearly as visionary as the document itself; which is in my view, one of the finest legal concepts in the history of development.
If you need a reference point, the entire nation of Singapore is a little larger than the "Port Area" in Freeport. But Singapore is more than 10 times wealthier than all caricom nations combined. And Singapore has more reasons than Freeport not to have developed. But they did and we have not. And now we are about to take a great agreement and not use it to get into the most advanced "future-driven" industries in the world. No. We are going to flog Chinese products, like a giant flea market. Think of Steven Jobs. Do you really think he would be trying to build an “Asia-Mart”, or some other for of international “strawmarket”, using the most advanced agreement in the world?
It is disgraceful.
There are other issues also. The Port Authority will have a right of suit to prevent the extension contemplated. The licensees will have a right of suit, if both against the government and if the Port Authority agrees to the extension, again the Port.
Make no mistake however, there is nothing left of the original benefits the Hawksbill Creek Agreement once offered. The Agreement once offered the following aimed at the advancement of trade advantages of a deep water harbour:

i. A Customs' holiday
ii. A Licensing Power
iii. Concessional Self-regulation

Not one of these carries any strategic advantage today. Harbours have deepened all over the Eastern Seaboard and in the Gulf; and even Jamaica. The are now and increasing "free trade zones" in the US, which means the custom's holiday is dead. The immigration benefit, which would have made Freeport an investment magnet, has been dead for years.
While the Bahamas struggles with an unimaginative - bottomfeeding - financial services structure. Freeport offered once the opportunity to be at the forefront of the regional commodities trade - real financial services - which at last check was valued at nearly $250 billion dollars in the Eastern Seaboard, Caribbean Basin region alone.
Additionally, the Licensing power was a source of abuse. If you want an idea of what Freeport was meant to be, look at Qatar and Estonia, both of which achieved their prominence in 15 years, when Freeport has had half a century.
These lazy moves such as "extension" of non-existent "benefits" are part of the mendicant habit we have developed in the Bahamas of slapping are teeth and gums together, and when we hear what we have said, it fires our synapses, with effect that we feel the psychological satisfaction of actually having done something.
That is also the pathos of dementia.

The Hawksbill Creek Agreement is one of the three finest development agreements signed in the post-World War II period.

We have never lived up to its potential, or followed the genius of its intentions.

Now, after the world has produced Turks and Caicos, A Medical Centre at Cuba, Estonia and DuBai - all featuring models that were meant for Freeport - we are left to flog China-wares, under the rubric of "distribution", from a high labour cost centre - which Freeport is now - with hardly any meaningful concessions left.

In 2003, after a major Shipping and Distribution Study for Madam Wu - then the Vice Premier of China & CITIC - Star Capital and I brought the Chairman of CITIC to Freeport. Nothing and I mean, Nothing happened!

Its over...

For us it seems, it is never too late to attempt to do always "next year", what the world expected us to do 20 years ago.

Gilbert NMO Morris