So how has all this tourist arrivals helped the cost of living to decrease, and how much of the money has been passed on to Bahamians?

How many of those 7.2 million tourists actually get off the ship? Do we really have 7.2 tourists? Or 7.2 million people whose departure tax are included in their cruise fares so we say the tourist, though they never get off the boat?

> The Davis administration is pushing
> for thousands of vacation rental
> owners to register their properties
> with the Department of Inland Revenue
> (DIR). The tax authority, in a
> statement last week, said the
> initiative was designed to ensure
> vacation rental properties pay their
> fair taxation share while also
> maintaining a high service standard
> for their guests.

We really have some agencies in this country that believe Bahamians are stupid. How does DIR taxing businesses correlate in them holding businesses to maintain high service standards. Just for them to say that is a joke.

> “I’m very pleased that as of last
> week, 15,008 Bahamians received
> assistance from the government and the
> assistance moved up by 10 percent
> across the board,” Mr Wilchcombe said.

Really? You are please that the government assistance is increasing in adding more people? That should raise a serious level of concern, that the policies of the government at putting more people below the poverty level.

If this view of thinking by the Minister does not raise a red flag, it means we in trouble in this country with this crew.

> Yesterday, Mr Mitchell said: “The
> Roman Catholic Archbishop again, I saw
> him at a function, and I had asked him
> the other day why the church has not
> been more forthright in seeking to
> tamp down the issues that are being
> whipped up which may lead to violence
> and discord in our society over these
> immigration matters.

So the church is supposed to do the government work? If te government does it job it won't need the church to do it. But swhy is the state dictating to the church what it should do?

> “The fact is there are 400,000
> Bahamians. There are seven million
> people who come here every year. We do
> not have the labour that’s as plain as
> day. We do not have the labour to be
> able to service the seven million
> people and so one of the issues we
> have to face is how is our immigration
> policy going to be managed.”

So if we don't have the labour to service the 7 million people the government let's come in, why let them cone in?

> Mr Mitchell said the fact of the
> matter is many Haitian vessels spotted
> in Bahamian waters are trying to get
> to the US and asserted in Parliament
> that “we can talk ourselves into a
> crisis or we can have faith in our
> institutions,” which he said are
> functioning well.

So we must trust incompetent government institutions?

This dude really living in an alternate universe and need to be gone.

So they will have people driving on the service road that is garbage, and fix it after the bridge when no one will need to. drive on it. Wow. Who thinks up these plans?

Another brain dead politician. All he is talking about is wasting money on the symptom. Maybe he could get a brain and put resources to solving the problem. Put money at the root cause and then won't have to deal with the symptom.

But guess that requires too much work.

So VAT grows by $50 million, and the deficit only shrinks by $7 million? Clearly these dudes are just spending money.

Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

Maybe the commissioner could get out and do something and rather than all this babble.

Exactly.

It is just a smoke screen

Thus dude is just unbelievable. If you will blame the speech writer, it means 2 things:
1. He did not read your speech over before coming to parliament
2. He is clueless about the finances of this country.