There is no load shedding this summer because Atlantis, Baha Mar, Breezes, Sandals and Bay St are closed.

Excellent job BPL on not load shedding.

The Prime Minister is to be congratulated in shutting the country down and getting Covid under control.

Turnquest has found a way to keep all government employees on staff and hard at work by borrowing. We only have total debt of $10 billion. I think we can handle up to $20 billion. So no need to open up, load shed or anything else.

If I were Atlantis I would open back up under the emergency orders and hopefully in February in the middle of winter we will have a vacine so they can stay open and Minnis doesn't have to shut them down again.

Ohhh....but how do you do a tourist business with social distancing...how do you open the restuarants, bars, beaches, booze cruises, cruse ships....we are on the right path.

Well done FNM!

OMG, sorry, I was being cynical. I'm not suggesting that "outright theft from the tax payer should be overlooked". But theft is a very strong accusation and has to be proven in a court of law and someone will need to prosecute. This should take about 10 years. But with the pandemic, Covid 19 protocols and emergency orders in place the brown envelope is demonstrating that employees are thinking out of the box!

ThisIsOurs, I think the brown envelope to collect cash is much more effective than have a cash register at each post office.

Why have basic accounting internal controls like a cash register which is balanced out and closed everyday and all cash receipts deposited on a daily basis at the bank.

Its much easier just to collect the cash, don't give change and then use the cash for expenses. This is much easier because now you don't need to go to the bank.

Ohh, also, they don't accept checks unless they are certified and ohh, they don't accept credit or debit cards either.

cash only please.

This is a pandemic. no mail delievered. everyone gets to keep their jobs.

The US$600 million they just borrowed form foreigners at 9% when Bahamians are only getting 0% at the bank will easily cover these expenses.

We are in a state of emergency. No time to investigate hard working government employees. We are shut down to save lives.

Every year I pay my annual post office box fee for 40 years and the money is put into a legal sized light brown envelope and they never have any change for me. So I jokingly tell them to buy lunch with the change. Now I don't even get international mail since the pandemic started. OK, I better stop complaining...or else.

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.