What is the Government afraid of in the McKinsey report?
Does it unveil the kick backs? The Political corruption?
The divestment of assets by the Port shareholders for their own profit?
The pointlessness of a "Minister of Grand Bahama"?
(or is the plan to do away with the H.C.A.?)
Does the report elude to the Nassau centric fear that has always existed with respect of Grand Bahama success?
Maybe it lays to rest the the question of the missing 7.5% Government shares?
Maybe we shall never know.........

To believe the Government would levy real property tax and leave it in Grand Bahama is Naive at best, disingenuous at worst.
In any case, the taxation of foreigners and exemption of Bahamians will have to end soon under WTO and EU-EPA rules.
Nassau will always be the repository of tax revenue to the detriment of the other islands.

30k attending would have to be a gross exaggeration,
none the less it was crowded.
Not sure how Government spending money $3 to $1 for vendor returns is good business or could be claimed as successful but as they are hell bent on being seen doing something so be it.

Yet they want Foreign direct investment,
but have totally bargained away any leverage the county might have had,
through "giveaways and Concessions" which contradict their long standing "policies"
Like retail, having created the habit and expectation of Sales and discounts,
the county cannot easily claw back the value lost (given away).

From the days of Mail Fraud, (Bay Street suitcase Companies)
nothing much has changed, except perhaps the expanded variety of scams we practice.
Is it not every Bahamians right (and habit) to bounce checks?
No law against it so far.

“The US will – going forward – use the lawful authority that was mutually agreed between the two countries to obtain surveillance information for drug interdiction and criminal activities.”
Nothing changes, we apparently agreed to it, although it would be nice to know who agreed to it on our behalf.
FOI NOW !!

I do not believe the country can survive much longer with either PLP or FNM as a government.
The two are synonymous. After al, was one not the spawn of the other?
It is a peculiar brand of Bahamian we elect, sans ethics, morals, competency or shame.
That is what must change.
Nothing else will until that does.

The Union role was played out even before Pindling found a political use for them!

Freeport (GB Power) is not competition, they have a "hypothetical" exclusivity for power generation and distribution within the Port Authority area.
Hypothetical as in 1993 (thereabouts) they were allowed to extend power to east and west Grand Bahama (non Port Authority areas including E.M.R.) on Behalf of the Government in exchange for permission for the Port Authority to sell the power Company to Southern Electric.
( with the inflated subscriber numbers provided by east and west) Which then sold it to Mirant, to Marebuni, to Emera (current owner)
The rates in Grand Bahama are just as economically fatal as Nassau, save the fuel surcharge fluctuating more realistically with the price of oil.
It is still a profit center for Emera.

"The Standards Bureau, which has to be established as part of the Bahamas’ commitments to membership in rules-based trading regimes such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), is designed to both protect consumers and facilitate trade."
Sounds nice, but it actually has the opposite effect in most 3rd world countries, once their ill run bureaucracies convert the rules into personal power, as tools to persecute and meddle.
In reality all we could do is adopt the standards of others, the source of all our imports!