Best mind the "North" doesn't "assault" us for being allied with Botswana!
Me thinks the P.M. aught to be focussed on our local long standing problems and the numerous new problems the government is creating for locals!

The wheel may want grease but if people give it.......
kickbacks are rampant from the top (the example we most often follow) to the bottom.
50 plus years to create the problem, gonna take a concerted effort to eliminate it.

Some bright spark in Government (who should be named) has had a slew of bad ideas, not thought through but pushed through. Define "comprehensive marine insurance"?
Must be purchased from a local licensed insurer? annual surveys? dry docking reports?
Crew training reports? Is this for private and commercial? They added inspections for private, and don't seem to make a distinction between for the other onerous requirements either.
And what carve out did they make for fishermen? sounds discriminatory. Is it by boat size or income level? last name or by relation to the P.M.?

So where will local tourist tour/ferry/attraction boat operators who take cruise ship passengers buy their insurance IF one must buy it locally from a licensed insurer? Currently most if not all "buy" their liability from the cruise lines themselves, not licensed to sell insurance locally but because local insurers lost their appetite for "Sue happy tourists" Also the cruise lines didn't trust local insurers or tour operators to keep insurance current.
Is the government aware they are messing around in a fragile industry they do not understand?
While the registration fees have been increased 10 fold so will insurance costs, if you can get it!

Leadership needs a serious upgrade, not vehicles.

Doubt anyone has realized the Government will be in the maintenance and eviction business?

Further the Government would "grant" the cruise line all manner of concessions, while Mr. Smith would have received few if any.
Those who can fight an oppressive Government should, on behalf of all those who cannot.

Perfect model for failure, by the time they do move on the real cost of business will have been increased by government even more. Tax tax and tax some more!

Successive governments have assisted the cruise lines in their quest for a closed money loop.
From airlift, hotel accommodations, transport, cruise and return, they make/take it all.
Successive governments have reduced Bahamians to begging for peanuts, even so far as rebating taxes and fees from the treasury.
They had an opportunity post covid to change the game, but instead bent over backwards to beg them to come back, with even more concessions and private islands.
Insanity.

URCA is the last useless Government bureaucracy needed in Freeport.
We have enough useless bureaucracy already.