Good one! There are few things worse for a country with a struggling economy, challenging financial requirements, and a myriad of social problems, than statistics prepared by incompetent or politically motivated statisticians who have their own agenda. Statistics are used by both the public and private sectors to make important decisions; accordingly, incomplete and/or inaccurate statistics frequently result in poor decision making that affects the development needs of our country and the quality of life for most Bahamians.

Carl Bethel, like his predecessor Allyson Maynard-Gibson, thinks he's a savvy politician, bright lawyer and legislator par excellence. But those of us who know him well worry a lot about his many shortcomings, including being too clever and shrewd for his own britches, and a propensity to often deal with significant issues in an underhanded haughty manner. Minnis would be wise to keep a very close eye on Bethel, as well as Symonette and D'Aguilar.

> .....the Minister {D'Aguilar} said the Government was “in kind of a dilemma” over its fiscal position “because we use government to create employment”.

In other words, we can expect the Minnis-led FNM government to further grow the already grotesquely bloated size of our government because these are the only jobs they can create. Yep, government's taxation needs will continue to increase while the private sector tax base continues to shrink. And many of us know all too well how this folly is going to end in the not too distant future!

Small wonder the statistics driven information produced by our Central Bank cannot be relied upon. If there is one place Bahamians who have received a D- education do **not** belong, it is the Department of Statistics!

There is something fishy going on here. Why are Ernst & Young (E&Y) the favoured forensic auditors for so many of the investigations instigated by the Minnis-led FNM government? If memory serves me well, E&Y were for the past several years (and may still be) the external auditors of Bank of The Bahamas ("BoB") ....... and we all know that BoB's audited annual financial statements have not been worth the paper they have been printed on for quite sometime now! I am reminded of Marcellus's famous non sequitur in Hamlet: "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." Perhaps our fourth estate (the independent press) can do some meaningful investigative work of their own to enlighten us as to what is going on here.

Fully agree!

Can you just imagine for one moment how such a spy statute would have been used by the corrupt Christie-led PLP government???!!!! Crooked Christie and his evil wicked witch of an attorney general (Allyson Maynard-gibson) would have used the dangerous spying powers to serve their own very corrupt greedy purposes and at the same time crush the voices of all opposition to them. The change of government on May 10, 2017 would never have occurred and most of us who heavily criticized the PLP (including many bloggers to this website) would have probably faced trumped up bogus charges of one kind or another before being carted off to prison. "No!" we cannot afford for any government to ever have such dangerous and intrusive powers over us. It would result in the end of our constitutional rights and democracy no matter what the distinguished lawyers and politicians in our country may tell us. That's the harsh reality! The threats to our society are not such that we should be willing to allow our government to listen in to our most private conversations and surveil all our other communications (internet and otherwise). Simply put, the dangers of doing so far outweigh any possible benefits! If there is one matter that warrants a national referendum, it would be this proposed spy statute as it would definitely be challenged on many legal fronts eventually triggering the need for the proposal of certain undesirable amendments to our existing constitution. With this in mind, a national referendum should be held first as opposed to the Minnis-led FNM government trying to ram the proposed spy statute down our throats after informal public commentary on it. Do the right thing Minnis - call for a national referendum (not a public survey) on this most important matter!

And for the same reason statues of slave owners and supporters of slavery during the confederate era in the U.S. are being torn down or relocated to less public places, we should be taking back and using the original name of our nation's main airport - Nassau International Airport. We don't need constant reminding of any corrupt PLP leader who played a major role in returning us to slavery - economic slavery!

Credit for the interesting points in the second post above belongs entirely to @jackbnimble as indicated in the bold type at the beginning of the post.

You should have also mentioned PwC. Rumour has it PwC are moving their offices from East Hill Street to a very high-rent prestigious office complex out west. Times must indeed be good for the fat cat accountants!