I disagree. I thank God for Franky the Snake and the PLP to continue to sell gas through their monopolistic vertically integrated business model created over decades of acquisitions help us poor black Bahamians buy diesel.

Lets take a look at this

Shell/producer/Focol - Focol/Importer - Focol Truck/Distributor - Focol/Retailer... excellent the market is corned and we Bahamians are benefiting from having diesel today!

OK, lets now take a look at whats at play at BPL

Shell/Focol/Producer/Importer - Focol/Retailer to BPL - Focal/Electrical Generation (this is brilliant) because when BPL go on strike Focal will keep the lights on.

Sir Franky is a great PLP General and has helped the Country greatly. He needs to be made a National Hero for his help in the economy and keeping the lights on and the cars running.

Maxim, the Bahamas won’t do a disorderly default they will selectively default to keep the US$ tap open. They will continue to pay the US$ foreign debtors interest while do a 2.5% Bahamian dollar devaluation. Just a lill devalue , move a long now ain nuttin to see here.

IMF to keep us well supplied with US$’s while the monopolies extract and export US$ for thier offspring fortunate enough to be gone.

Hardly noticeable, no body move, no body get hurt too bad.

The societal divergence between rich and poor is too large and growing, we say we have economic freedom but taxes and a few monopolies have a grip on competition.

So build away at bigger and better prisons, police cars, more gated communities and private islands for the tourist.

Best of luck. The middle class is spending millions educating thier kids in western developed countries and telling them never to return.

The G7 love it because they get young, intelligent, educated immigrants … the best snd brightest young Bahamians plus their inheritances as thier societies age.

The Bahamas is left with an even more unequal society.

Agreed. Let’s see a Green Paper on Travel and Entertainment expenses.

If these ppl would put their offices in Grants Town and not London Town I am sure they would want to focus on education, housing, crime, food security, global warming and crime.

Versus how can we extract more money from the few that have any money left.

At $12.5 billion in debt, up $2 billion since the new administration started and an S&P rating one grade above default please pray no hurricanes hit Nassau this year.

It will be a catastrophe of Haitian proportions.

Ppl may not mind paying a tax if there was accountability and some effort to control the rapid growth of government.

Also this does is make everyone more anxious.

Expect a clumsy implementation with areas related to foreign residents with billions of dollars to tax remaining sufficiently vague and constantly changing.

With bank account freezes and asset confiscations already implemented without a tax court the government now become judge, jury and and enforcer with zero oversight.

If someone tells you who they are believe them the first time.

First real property tax, then VAT, then corporate tax and after that income tax.

Middle and upper class Bahamians have already gotten their children and grand children out.

We should soon start to see an increase exodus of bank accounts out of the country as the debate noise becomes deafening.

A corporate income will not work without a corresponding personal income tax.

Every developed country has both without exception.

In order to avoid the loophole of persons transferring wealth to thier individual names they will introduce personal income rapidly after the implementation of corporate tax.

Since the implementation of VAT taxes have increased dramatically and the national debt has doubled to $12.5 billion.

With income tax the government will be able to double its debt again.

Please pray no hurricanes hit Nassau.

Also we don’t grow, produce or manufacture anything in the Bahamas not even chicken or chicken eggs,

Everything is imported including 50,000 work permits to do every single job because we are either to dumb, lazy, ignorant or uneducated to do anything.

Every business I talk to uses imported labor.

Then everyone wonders why taxes on a plane ticket is higher than fare.

Stop complaining we lucky we really close to Miami otherwise this would be Haiti.

My rule of thumb was to double the cost to import anything into the Bahamas.

This is caused by governments strangle hold on electricity/BPL, imports/Arawak ports, fuel taxes/Focal/Shell, Vat/duties, an archaic customs clearance system and a regressive tax system which taxes physical imports rather than income, dividends and payrolls.

Add to this corruption and bribes you need to pay at every step in the process, zero transparency in government procurement, and monopolies and cartels in all core activity from lousy Canadian banks to foods stores importing inferior quality foods from south east Asia.

Then add to this zero investment in new schools and education versus billions going into hotels and gated communities for foreigners.

Now I add 130% to anything I import and as a Bahamian I try not to live in the country due to crime.

if 45,625 are behind in their payments, how many accounts does W+S have?

I would assume about 200,000 accounts?

So 25% of the ppl are behind?

How much behind, less than 30 days?