Innocent until proven guilty, the courts will decide his fate.

Will never happen. Government is raking in money like crazy right now and blowing their load over how many over priced no-bid contracts they can give out to their friends and lovers.

Here is a better question : why is the power still shutting off in 2022?

It amazes me how all of these politicians start asking questions the minute they get out of office while doing absolutely nothing to fix the problems while in. My power has been shutting off under the PLP and FNM, it really hasn't made a difference which group of buffoons were in power, yet we still see so many waving red and yellow flags at election time as if either party is actually doing something to fix the problems that we face.

We are in the 21st century, please do better. I really don't expect it though.

We could never buy Russian oil because the Bahamas is not an independent nation. We will jump as high as the State Department tells us to because we have no other choice in the matter.

Regarding Saudi oil, you are 100% right but don't expect the average Bahamian to be able to point out where Saudi Arabia is on a map much less understand a complex situation like Yemen. TV pundits and the Facebook algorithm don't push it because there is no political convenience in doing so, so most people have no idea what is even going on in that region. Society is formed around the lowest common denominator.

The real question here is why do we need an ambassador to Belgium in the first place? I can understand maintaining diplomatic ties with the European Union, but there are far too many "embassies" and "missions" that serve as nothing more but a drain on the Bahamian taxpayer.

The Bahamas is a diplomatic nobody and that is not going to change any time soon; keep a few consulates in key cities like New York, Miami, Toronto, London where there are a decent amount of Bahamians in close proximity, but there are too many money pits disguised as diplomatic missions that are draining money for no return.

This is one thing that I agree with Minnis on, we have to operate under the presumption of innocence no matter what charges are brought against a person. Let the judicial process play out.

I must remark that this is the start of a rather horrifying trend in this country; expect political prosecutions every time the government changes from this point forward. We are in the late stages of becoming a bush republic nation.

VAT was implemented to bring down the national debt, the national debt has only increased since then (even before Dorian and COVID). Adding new taxes will do nothing but fuel the insatiable appetite of these governments for wasteful spending. New taxes will be brought in and 5 years later we will start seeing trial balloons in the local media about introducing new taxes to "reduce the national debt".

That would actually go a long way towards fixing our problem and mean that they wouldn't be able to give their sweethearts overpriced no bid contracts, so they aren't really interested in hearing all of that.

Why doesn't the government offer a temporary VAT holiday, or reduce tax on gasoline, if the VAT revenue is as high as they are projecting? Having such an import based economy limits what the government can do to a large degree, but they definitely can do more to assist if they wanted to.

Also, backyard farming. The Bahamas will never grow enough food to be self sufficient, but encouraging the growth of simple backyard crops would be a help in making the country a little bit less dependent on imported food. Not a game changer, but it would be a help.

The real question is why does anyone expect any better?