We are not myopic. The bigger and better you make the clinics, the more boats will come. So we know better than to waste money. Look at all the PMH expansion over the past decade - yet we still got Bahamians dieing in the hallway waiting for beds.

They don't want to pay VAT on bread basket items (the only thing they buy) - so where is the money coming from? Is their Govt going to write us a cheque for $43,181,178 ?

Bogart...predatory lending reigns supreme. However if you say you want them to lend then it's hard to come back a couple years later and say you were preyed upon.

We need a new law to allow the establishment of a national credit rating system - like Experian AND a new law to allow Bahamians to declare bankruptcy (showing they are truly without assets) and thereby have all loans wiped off the books by the Court. Until that law is made, the banks have no incentive not to be predatory.

So they allowed her to speak instead of Glenys Hannah Martin. Wow.

Why should they bother to speak? Most delegates already know who they are going to vote for...and fact will not pursuade them otherwise.

They also know that in the Bahamas you dont need to have a good leader or even a plan. If the other Party does a terrible job in Govt then the people will put you back in to replace them.

Except in 2022, there will be different people voting and the FNM will be returned to power - no matter how bad things are - under the leadership of then Prime Minister Campbell who will have already been put in the chair a few months prior to election by the FNM MPs and the GG.

He will sway the majority "Bahamian" voters to elect him with an eloquent speech in Creole.

Tal .... in what way tone down? I mean u should not reference the PMs body parts in that way. Lets stick to the issues and hope that he is wise enough to have a member of his staff reading daily through our writings to see if there are any gems if wisdom that can help him (and therefore help all of us). If we are seen as using profanity and gutter language etc. then there is no chance anyone will give our ideas a second look. Finally, i want to say i respect you - even though we often differ - as a great commentator, just like many on here and i am grateful that the Tribune even allows us this space to vent.

I wish they would get the user profile button fixed though. I cant scroll through mine and other's previous comments.

Tal as much as i may agree with your sentiment, i also feel that OUR prime minister should not be referenced in such as way. I love free speech, but perhaps, with respect to you as a fellow commentator, could you tone it down just a pinch?

Like a little tiny birthday cake candle, the hope for this country's future was just blown out.

It is time for Bahamians - with the money to travel - to research and find a country that will welcome them.

There is no more Bahamas. Bahaiti? Like the article says "Haiti and the Bahamas are bound together by history, by geography and by family ties."

Bound together.

Haiti & Bahamas - one nation with liberty and justice for all. Foot on the ground? You straight.

What is amazing to me whenever these kinds of comments come up (like JoeBlow here) about prisoners - is that people seem to forget that every single one of these men (&women) in prison were once cute little babies. Just like Bob Marley said, "The biggest man I ever did see..." in the song Comin' In From The Cold.
The practice of Christianity in this country is very strange. It contains a loop-hole where we simply label someone as inhuman or unworthy of brotherly love anytime we feel like it. People are disposable. Of no value. Yet we wonder how teenagers (and others) can simply kill anybody anytime without any concern beforehand, nor remorse afterward.
They do this because they learn that lives don't matter, and even if they do matter today - they can simply be labeled as "not mattering" tomorrow. This would happen, of course, if someone becomes a prisoner. Then suddenly they don't matter anymore, and "anything that happens to them in there" is what what they deserve.
Really? Is that what the Judge says in the court room at the end of the trial? "I hereby sentence you to 'anything that happens to you'."
In that case, why not make hanging the penalty for ALL crimes?
This sick way of demeaning and trivializing prisoners to no longer being persons - is a true sickness of our society - and we are paying the price for it.
As long as we continue to say some lives don't matter - then no lives will matter - and every single one of us runs the risk of being murdered at any place on any day at any time. It is our choice to think this way.

Hannah-Martin is a true patriot. We can only hope the delegates have the wisdom to make her Leader in the upcoming Convention. But we all know they are likely not that smart.

Sheeprunner...your figure is incredibly accurate. If you add up the smuggling lost duty, drug & gun profits lost by former Bahamians in these trades, prostitution income losses, and total in all clinic and schooling costs for 2016 (using online data published by their mafia as well) the total is $297,386,781.09 So, yes, $300M is an accurate figure.

LOL