For years the lions share of the government drug contracts have gone to the big wholesale companies who "rape" the retailers, and by extension, the public, with their ridiculous markups.
These same wholesalers have gone on record as saying that the government does not pay their contracts, and now they are crying because they are being by-passed. In other countries that have NHI, pharmacies and wholesale drug companies still exist, and I don't see why the Bahamas should be any different. No sympathy from me. They all have gotten rich while driving up prescription costs to the average citizen.

Is John Rolle going to re-negotiate correspondent banking agreements for the Banks that will lose them if they accept this "so called legal money". The large majority of our local clearing banks are owned by, or are locally incorporated assets of foreign Banks and do not have the authority to make a decision as to whether or not they can accept these questionable "numbers" deposits. No large bank is going to risk losing their international affiliations in order to accept funds which are illegal and were only made "legal" by the PM after being voted down by a referendum. Maybe the Central Bank can restructure itself to accept these deposits. Then the numbers boys will have their own Bank.

And after they courier their letters of demand to these "delinquent" business and property owners, their cronies and "boys" will still owe the bulk of the unpaid taxes and fees, and not a damn thing will be done to those, while others will face prosecution. What a joke; but this will not be funny come next May.

I don't think that the Government can use an abject failure as and "election gimmick", and to think that they may try and garner political mileage from the dump fiasco is absurd. However, it is not totally the PLP government that has failed us in this matter, but the FNM choose also to bury their heads in the sand, when it came to the dump situation. Maybe Bran should tell us how a DNA government would rectify this problem. Remember, that for the vast majority, garbage collection is free, and Bahamians have not bee educated yet that there needs to be a separation of the types of waste they have to dispose. Then, and only then, can we begin to recycle and reduce the massive amount of plastics that get buried in that landfill, and then spontaneously ignite, and create the massive fires that are difficult to extinguish.

The real culprits in Bank of The Bahamas downfall will never face any penalty. The corruption dates back to the time when Euro-Canadian Bank sold out its majority shares to the Government and the then Prime Minister (Papa) brought in John Kenning, and Pauline Allen Dean ( two Barclays Bank rejects) to run BOB. Kenning's claim to fame was that he married into the Kelly money and Allen-Dean was his recruit. Kenning then brought in his protege, Paul McQeeny, to succeed Mrs. Allen-Dean and the rest is history. In essence if a true legitimate audit was done, and the real results revealed, the evidence would point out that corruption was rampant in BOB since the early 90's and that most of their non-performing loans were approved under an FNM government (albeit with PLP management at the helm), who provided no supervision to the activities of the Bank. Kenning has gone to meet his maker, Allen-Dean has retired, and McQueeny just received a fat severance package, and is now going to be the beneficiary of another cushy job in NHI. There will be no penalty for anyone in this fiasco, except the shareholders, and all of the governments paper shuffling and selling of worthless issues will not save them.
If all of the local banks redeemed their government issued stock, the country would be bankrupt as the government reserves could not cover redemption. Only an idiot would invest in BOB.

Congrats to all of the nominees, but especially Peggs who is a gentleman, a true Bahamian ambassador, and a person who you Bahamians will do well to emulate.

At least the Freeport Power Company is attributing their increases to the Hurricane. BPL, on the other hand, will say that New Providence consumers have to bear an increase in "Fuel Surcharge", and then say we had to pay nothing for Restoration after Matthew. And the PM will be bragging come election time that he insured that our electricity bill did not go up because of Matthew, but we will be paying out of our butts to cover the expenditure. Stevie Wonder- Heaven Help Us All.

Should it really take until December to Issue $!,000.00 coupons, and to wait until the end of the year to begin construction of Homes totally destroyed. I guess this is okay if you are not living in a home with no roof or have no home at all. Capt. Russell will still be there posing for pictures even though his record leaves much to be desired.

So, what else is new? Construction was supposed to already re-started according to our illustrious Prime Minister. He painted a picture of a "done deal" now he has Obie doing the dirty work of admitting how premature his announcement was. This project was and is a disgrace for our country's reputation from the start. And for God's sake can someone please take down the stupid plastic flags off the top of this dinosaur.

It will probably cost another several million (including deal kickback percentage) to renovate and redesign the independence shopping centre to accommodate the Post Office. Then another several million (with the same provisos) to demolish the old building along with our recently spent 4 million dollars in renovations. What great financial genius in the PLP thinks that this makes sense. Never mind, they can always figure out another tax to put on the people to pay this thoughtless waste of money, under to guise of, "for the good of the country".