It is shocking to read the hate against this Bahamian that gets posted every time he is in the press fighting for the rights of those same people who hate him.

The immigration department seems to have very few laws that govern their operation. There are also very few laws governing the detention center. This has led to systematic abuse of the law and human rights.

Anyone that supports a person being essentially kidnaped by government agents who are breaking the law and hiding that person away in unlawful detention until they can ship them off to a country the individual has no proven connection to all because the documents they own are considered fake should realize that they may one day find themselves kicked out of their own country because they are black, poor and have an undesirable last name!

I do not feel that the gentleman involved is a saint but how can the immigration department be allowed to get away with the facts of this case!

He should receive the compensation and if Fred is reading this he should sue every case when immigration abuses it’s mandate!

I am sure fred can become the richest man in the Bahamas and it will be paid for with government incompetence and decaying social morals.

It may just be me but is this comment not highly offensive?

#“Be careful with the company you keep.”

#“I shall not go any further than that,” he said to the press. “Y’all are intelligent people.”

Sounds like the honorable thing to do would be to pay the condo owners fair market value and reimburse them for all the repairs they made on the resorts behalf.

On a lighter note the Government/Our Lucaya should be falling head over heels to gift this group those old broke up hotels. Not many can fix the disasters left behind and this group seems to have been doing an excellent job of just that!

I am speaking to suggest that sometimes parents should be held accountable for their lawless children emotionally devoid of empathy or respect of human life due to the upbringing they received.

I think legal framework would be needed for this.

Can we consider that if a child under the age of 18 commits a violent crime that the following takes place.

Child is arrested and an investigation takes place by social services who conducts some of the following.

Interview the child to determine literacy, school attendance, upbringing, relationship with parents, drug test etc.

Then inspect the home and interview the parents to determine family relationships, drug or alcohol use within the home, signs of neglect, sanitary conditions etc.

Then have this report provided to the court so the judge may impose sentence on the guardian responsible for the child if they deem that the child's actions have been encouraged by their social upbringing or conditions.

Before we get into all of this surely we must first have a real discussion of if health care should be free (by free i mean paid for by all) or if it is the responsibility of the individual.

If we are to be like Canada and England we have to look at how we would make it work.

The NHS soaks up between 13-19% of everyone's salaries with a rough estimate that each resident costs about 2800.00.

However this is based on a huge population base with a massive budget for healthcare with a better ratio of healthy people compared to us.

We will never be able to afford first world medical facilities to each island as our population base is to small.

Of course if we somehow became super efficient in our governance and attained such lofty goals then people should be overjoyed at the prospect of such amazing healthcare.

The other option is to become like the U.S. offer good quality healthcare to those that can afford it.
If so then maybe privatize the hospitals to reduce government spending and increase quality.
Use the saved money to subsidize a mandatory insurance for children, the elderly and the disabled.

First off I truly hope this project succeeds and that i am wrong.

The idea that a private business could not purchase this hotel from another private business but we are to believe the government has many purchasers leads me to believe that-

A. We will give away our hat and our soul in both the purchasing and the selling as no hotel brand could ever see this as profitable even if it was free.

B. There are scandalous money washers that will be unheard of fronting the sale with no intention of running a decent hotel.

I would entertain the government demolishing all but the newest part of the hotel.
Cleaning the empty property to look desirable and then spending some of these millions to hire resort planners to help us market ideas to big hotel names in the hope they invest to create a destination experience.

The hotel has so much against it that it seems undeniably doomed. Lets be honest, the hotel was at 5% or less for most of its usable life, before the hurricanes it was dead and the government was paying to keep it open.

The market place and restaurants are 1 precarious step away from Bazar 2.0 and only a big bold and daring move can hope to redevelop and modernize the strip.

How many children are born in the Bahamas to parents with Bahamian recognized surnames but have never applied for a passport?

Should these people be sent to the detention center if picked up? Should they be deported to Haiti?

What is interesting is if you question a person in that situation or ask others if they should be deported the majority will of course say no but change the subject to someone with a foreign last name and.....

Which leads to a concerning question. What makes a Bahamian a Bahamian to society? Race? Surname? Country of birth? Birth certificate? Lineage? Accent?

Why not use Freeport as a testing ground akin to its original mandate and transform the city.

Scrap anti foreign business owner immigration/Government constraints.

Allow easy entry with clear guidelines of how to open up shop.

Create a Freeport immigration bylaw providing incentive to genuine competent company's and owners to come here and invest.

When will we stop the mindset of thinking that everyone wants to come here! The hard fact is they do not! And we have to make it attractive if we ever want them and their money to be invested into our economy.

Think how easy this would be! How well the island would flourish and how everyone on the island would prosper if they desired to!

Imagine all the restaurants, the shops, the industry, the schools, the medical facility's and if the government is reading this........

imagine the new tax base!