> “This legislation gives no right to the public to access the transparent bidding process and the right to know who bids (or) for how much they bid and who receives government contracts,” Dr Rollins said. “There is nothing in this bill that would have guaranteed the public the right to know all the bids made to purchase the 51 per cent share of BTC in 2010 or why it was that the main bidder was allowed to enter the bidding process after the bid deadline had already passed. Nor does this Bill guarantee a right to know the terms of the purported buy back of two per cent of those shares since the PLP came to office.

It is apparent that Rollins does not understand what FOIA legislation is and what is supposed to exist in the legislation itself. None of these things would be in the legislation. Legislation would provide for such information to be requested and given. That is like saying the VAT Bill ought to have named specific stores and how much you ought to pay to them in VAT. Rollins likes to make alot of noise and sometimes he gets it right but this is silly. As for the 2010 point, that information has already been tabled in Parliament. And there was no 2% buy-back of shares by the PLP. Again, an example of making noise for the sake of doing so.

Minnis' minions are so desperate in knowing that nothing they are doing is resonating, that they are creating their own fantasies and then clinging onto them for dear life.

Those figures are population figures, not the number of registered voters.

This imbecile clearly does not know what "embattled" means, as he keeps having his speechwriter use it to describe Christie.

There is so much that can be said about these remarks by Minnis that the Tribune would need to purchase extra bandwidth.

Here goes another voice who is not an authority on the matter, trying to convince us of the "science".

Wondered how long it would take for the media to become aware of this.

I stopped flying on WesternAir years ago because I had too many concerns, inclusive of matters connected to this point you raised.

A good number of these questions are pedantic if not bordering on silly. Others simply require the writer to do her own basic research. For example: "what is a gunshot detection device?" Seriously? Go and look it up. A Manifesto is not Google or an almanac. I understand the perspective, but the author is trying too hard to prove she can ask as many questions as the column inches can accept, especially since a Manifesto or similar document outlines plans that the Party is then to go into detail with, with the electorate. Also, a good number of the details being asked about can only be definitely provided after a government gets in and is able to assess the condition of the State and its agencies; something I would have thought the writer appreciated or understood.

I am waiting for a government or prospective government to begin to deal with the radical changes those in and outside the system know are needed. These changes need to be the immediate focus. Pilot programs are fine but priorities is the issue here. We don't need to take precious resources away from the schools "immediately" for experiments, when the system is in a state of emergency. Literacy and numeracy are at detrimentally low levels in our system and our country, and I have yet to hear how this will be addressed in a real way. Yes, we can pay teachers more and we should. But are our teachers where they need to be in terms of their qualifications and abilities? Are the qualifications sufficient for where the country needs to go? What are we prepared to do to address the same? Is our national educational philosophy what it needs to be? We are building schools, but what are we building in the classrooms, in the minds and spirits of the students? And then there are the Family Islands and how they are handled and managed in the system compared to New Providence.