Duh!! Ya think!! Of course this will lead fewer cruise ship passengers to downtown!! That is the whole point!!! The cruise lines don’t want their passengers going into the city or anywhere else except to their own exclusive “resort”. The downtown businesses should have been fighting this deal from day one years ago!!! Now they are way too late.

“……he(Halkitis) explained that the move was intended to ensure that those offering vacation rental products met a standard that upheld The Bahamas’ reputation as a quality tourism destination and experience.” Another government spokesperson, I believe the head of DIR, last week used the same rationale. Which is all baloney since the short-term vacation rental model has been self-policing, self-regulating and growing by leaps and bounds very successfully for the past 20 years with absolutely zero input or regulation by any government department

10 more years and all of NP will be completely paved over and high-density population.

This is a joke. The Canadians are sending 2 very slow ( 8 knots cruising speed) Kingston class patrol boats. Armed with a couple of .50 calibre machine guns And a crew of 47 max. Laughable.

Here we go again, the old “the foreign property owners are the biggest delinquents when it comes to paying real property taxes” trope. I’d like to see Mr. Andrew Allen’s verifiable proof that is the actual case. In my experience the biggest delinquents in many, but not all, cases are Bahamian owned properties on New Providence, especially commercial propertys, but homes also. Granted there are many foreign homeowners who are delinquent on their taxes, some intentionally for sure, and others are behind due to the semi-broken and convoluted system in place to access ones tax-bill and pay it. Every year I have numerous foreign property owners, most seeking information and help trying to access and use the government system to pay their taxes. In my experience the huge majority of foreign property-owners not only want to pay their taxes on time, they actually want to do it early…but cannot due to the governments broken system.

Where in South Abaco is this going to be located??

So how is a new client going to open a new personal account?? Online?

Unfortunately the government consistently tends to overcomplicate these things and so forces the business, yacht-owner or homeowner to jump through far too many hoops in relation to whatever benefit they might receive.

Birdie…government added 10% vat to medications at the beginning of the year. Gvernment wants its cake and eat it too.

Start Cove is 100% spot on!
In total, statistics from the Florida-based International Shark Attack File show that only about 32 shark attacks have been reported in the Bahamas since 1749, the highest number in the region.