Gross negligence? Cost $350,000? Give me a break. This is corruption plan and simple and Heaven knows how much this systematic theft has cost the rate payers over the years. How can any competent firm not track and correlate how much fuel it buys and how much it uses, especially when our power rates are burdened with a huge "fuel cost adjustment".

Get the government out of the power business. The sooner this service is turned over to a private operator, the sooner we can see our power rates return from the stratosphere. The ludicrous cost of electricity in the Bahamas is a national disgrace.

Of course the union hides under the Bahamian flag but what this is really about is doing anything and everything to avoid the obvious comparisons that will be generated between the costs and service levels of a government controlled enterprise when compared to a privately controlled one.

The union is doing everything it can to eliminate the healthy impact on costs and services that will ultimately flow from the privitization of BTC to protect themselves from such comparisons. BEC is next on the list and they fear that.

If another private competitor is permitted to enter the telephonic communication's market, their campaign will have failed.

"Firstly in (it is?) our fiduciary obligation to ensure that the fund of the board is protected (sic), and secondly we want to be an efficient and effective board as much as possible."

....so as a first order of business let's agree to have the fund pay bills charged on a Platinum Credit Card issued to our chairman. You can't make this stuff up.

Here's another great PLP idea. Let's force Cable Bahamas to deliver basic service at a fraction of the true cost.

That way the company can be denied the resources necessary to make all the technological upgrades required for a first class operation, and we can have third rate cable and internet service throughout the country, keeping the Bahamas squarely in the Third World.

Too bad for the country, but it will get a lot of PLP votes and who knows, maybe the government can form a new commission to determine how the government can take majority control of Cable Bahamas along with BTC and BEC! That would mean lots of patronage jobs for the PLP insiders as well.

When the government regains a majority stake in BTC can we expect that our mobile telephone services will be delivered as efficiently as our electric power is delivered by BEC?

Does that mean our mobile phone bills will be only about 35% of current levels, as the mobile service will not work about 65% of the time?

Can we revert to the good old days when we can face a political crisis every time BTC management has to negotiate any aspect of the BTC employees' compensation?

Another set of wonderful ideas from the PLP!

The government must get out of the power business. BEC should be privatized as quickly as possible. No government can run a business. This fact has been demonstrated throughout the civilized world. Such enterprises only serve to further the personal interests of corrupt politicians. It is nearly criminal that the PLP is now "trying" to reverse the privatization of the formerly government run mobile carrier in the Bahamas. For the same reasons the government should get out of the media business. This is a national embarrassment and makes the Bahamas look like a Chavez style Banana Republic.

Get the government out of the power business, the radio and TV business, out of all business. These anachronistic government run enterprises are simply fonts for waste, corruption and propaganda and have no place in a modern democratic society.

This stuff is redolent of the Soviet Union or Red China and even those totalitarian regimes have figured it out and are moving to privatize formerly government run enterprises.

Government owned media outlets are the province of totalitarian governments. The government should sell ZNS to a private operator and get out of the "propaganda" business. There is a vital media, including a vibrant free press in the Bahamas. There is no excuse for maintaining this anachronism.

....and if this committee can dither for another ten or twenty years it will be possible for Mr. Christie to remain resolutely committed on "both sides" of these important questions, depending on to whom he is speaking, for the balance of his political tenure. Maybe the committee could also be charged with reviewing the government's position on legalizing Bahamians gambling.

I hope the worthy Bishop has set aside a big wall.