Curious, see my reply above. You seem like a decent guy. I think you need to take a closer look at this company. Something is rotten in Denmark my friend. Everything I say is a matter of public record.

But that is simply not true Curious. BPC agreed to pay a lot of money to the government, then failed to do so. Reneged on any or all of their licensing fees over the years. The extent of their failure to pay remains undisclosed. Last year, thy reached a settlement deal with the government over those unpaid fees, for $900k of what should have been up to $12million. See, in the weeks before, they launched a mutual fund to attract Bahamian investors, raised exactly $900k from us, and used it to settle their unpaid bill! That’s right - WE paid our own government, not BPC. Now who is sly and underhand? Second, under the terms of the deal, an oil discovery will change no loves here. One of the worst deals for a domestic population of its kind in the world. The realities of our economy, GDP and national debt means that the drop in the bucket BPC is proposing to give us will not make anything better, while endangering the very foundations of the most prosperous economy in the region. In addition, while the rhetoric is that the government and the people of the Bahamas will decide the way forward once a discovery is found, BPC continues to tell his investors that it has us locked in to a 30 year production agreement that we cannot get out of. One way or the other, they are lying. Lastly, a Judicial Review I’d a process by which the government’s decision making process is examined by the courts. It is not a lawsuit. That process was never intended to include private companies, and it is not the proper place for them to be joined. They have a right to be heard the same as if they were parties however. Which they have been granted in this case as well. The reason the environmentalists resist their unusual request to be included in a process that has nothing to do with them, is because this unnatural inclusion of a private developer in what is a judicial process to do with government decision-making has been pursued in the past by companies, merely so they can bring an army of expensIve lawyers to bear, draw out the proceedings, demand security for cost and price regular citizens out of justice. Prevent them ever getting a hearing, denying them their day in court. There is no other advantage to be gained by the company via being included, because as I said, they already have a right to be heard in the same way they would as a party. This is happened several times in the Bahamas before. And BPC‘s lawyers have made it clear that that is their intention in this case as well. Judicial review hearings are meant to happen quickly, if there is nothing for the company to be afraid of, why not just let the court review the government’s decision making process?

The change.org petition never claimed to be a local poll. Many different jurisdictions will be affected by BPCs nonsense and they have a right to speak as well. This, on the other hand, is clearly meant for locals and it was hijack by self interested interlopers trying to make a buck off of the Bahamas. You’re absolutely correct though, everything will come out soon, I hope DPC is ready for the various disclosures they will be forced to make. People will see this thing in a whole new light I promise you.

And the BPC deal would give us pennies. No way it would even impact the national debt. It is a terrible deal crafted by a terrible company, using political insiders in the PLP. We have been sold out.

Right. But when presented with evidence that the British shareholders of this company had ramped up the yes vote, you claimed but it was the will of the Bahamian people. Now that you are about to lose, it is the foreigners skewing the vote towards no. You are an interesting creature, a sort of British Trumper who believes things are genuine only when they favor your desired outcome. When BPC is found to her drilled illegally and any further licenses or refused as a result, will you also try to hold on to the deal kicking in screaming like the orange one in Washington? Incite a riot maybe? Who knows what you will do British7.

This vote has been hijacked by shareholders of the oil company who are trying to make a fast buck. Yes votes are not coming from the Bahamas. You will see all of it in the comments above

Mmm and yet you lost on every other count. Commiserations my friend. This is just the start.

Well well well. Britain7 and Columbus-the-Oppressor. Why the tied tongues?

Why would the government tolerate this failure to pay, you might ask. You need to pay attention of the political circumstances under which the deal was signed. The then governing party’s deputy was BPC’s attorney. The then Prime Minister ended up as their consultant. The governing partiy’s senator was there managing director, and another senator from that party is now their attorney. BPCs deputy chairman, the former minister of finance from that party, owns 9 million shares. Starting to get the picture?

They want to give us 12.5 to 25%. Based on potters numbers that is at maximum $250 million a year. That is best case scenario. Our national debt is 9 billion and growing, growing by more than that number each year. Our government annual budget is an excess of 3 billion. 250, million would not change things dramatically for anyone here. Nor do we have a history of government actually trickling down revenue to the public in any case. Money is money, but not with the kind of catastrophic risks that are involved. And that doesn’t have to mean a major spill. It is the fragile interconnectedness of all parts of our marine ecology that is the point. So just the silt and normal waste from the drill, being so close to a marine protected area were fish spawn and spread out to populate the entire marine ecosystem, that is the issue. If you don’t understand the particular ecology of the Bahamas, which is far as I know is quite unique, you do not understand the threat. Nor do we know for certain that the company has paid heaps of money to our government over the years. We have no freedom of information, but we do know that they defaulted on some, or perhaps all of their license payments. They settled last year for $900,000, which they had just raise from local investors, for an undisclosed amount which they had failed to pay. The total bill would’ve been an excess of $12 million. Did they ever pay us anything? We just don’t know.