When its time for the hotels to open they will be bankrupt and there will be no money left for redundancy.

We borrow in the present and reform in the future.

Whatever happened to the Economic Committee recommendations. I guess that hope is being replaced with new finance reform laws sometimes in November when Covid 19 will be even stronger and the lock down tighter and the economy even weaker.

Is there any end to this hot air, any end to the debt or any end to the lack of reforms?

Bahamas and Shell (probably the worlds worst multinational) invests hundreds of millions into last centuries global warming high carbon foot print fossil fuel and zero in solar or renewable energy.

This agreement with Shell runs completely contrary to the global "Paris Agreement [whose] central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius." United Nations Climate Change.

C19 is child's play compared to the hurricanes and rising sea levels facing the Bahamas.

"Where there is no vision, the people [continue] to perish". Proverbs 29:18

Its most unfortunate that the largest employer, Sandals in Chester Cooper's constituency and the larger employer in San Sal, Club Med in Brave's constituency have both closed until "next year sometime".

It clear now that Minnis will become their savior with money from NI.

Also the government can readily borrow in the local B$ market. It needs to borrow to soak up the massive levels of liquidity due to businesses being closed. Any loans to the private sector will probably go bad.

The only fully functioning part of the Bahamian economy is the government and we all should be thankful to Minnis.

I think the government has a lots of excess borrowing capacity and will continue paying the civil service heading into the 2022 election season.

Our debt to GDP ratio is only 70%, most banana republics are above 100%.

So we have the capacity to borrow around $3 billion more. That’s at least 3 years worth of government payroll, travel and entertainment and “mismanagement “. The imf, oecd and IBD are only too happy to lend as the developed countries print money under QE.

Nothing to do with innovation, or restarting the economy or even feeding hungry Bahamians.

The prime beneficiaries of this new policy are the ERC constituency (lawyers/residency fees, government/taxes).

Please don’t look to the ERC for salvation.

It really looks bad that the first recommendation of the ERC doesn’t benefit the average Bahamian. The optics are horrible. But I guess these days the government doesn’t even care about optics when the society/economy is imploding. Every man for himself. God help us all.

Moncurcool, thank you for the counter argument and your perspective on the issues I raised.This is the type of 2 sided/views blogs that are constructive.

Public service employees will be paid.

The government is far from broke. With $2 billion in foreign reserves, $500 million in new loans coming in from the IMF and other multilateral organization, the issuance of tens of millions local Bahamian dollar bonds at rates significantly higher and attractive than fixed deposits to monied locals, the commercial banks awash in liquidity as there is nothing to invest in, the blocking of Bahamians moving funds out of the Bahamas for capital account purchases, the freezing of Canadian banks taking profits out of the country by dividend.

My argument is that the government is very wealthy.

Actually they are crying poor mout while their paychecks are wired to their bank accounts, their cars are filled with free gas and their entertainment allowances continue while entertainment has ceased.

They just don’t care about the working class. In fact I think they feel the middle class is ungrateful for all they are doing for them. They also know, no one will vote for their visionless leadership in 2022.

Hi Carey

Turnquest said that the government is borrowing around $500m (half a billion) from the IMF and other multilateral organizations.

Not sure if any of this can actually trickle down to Freeport.

First we need to pay the monthly civil service bill, remember, no one has lost their jobs or taken a cut in pay.

After payroll I doubt their is anything left to help private industry.

....but make sure the poor man pays their VAT on time. Any luck with getting the water situation sorted out after Dorian?