The government appears to already be concerned about "unintended consequences" of this policy.

You simply can't ring fence the web shops and out do zone wealthy landlords from participating without killing the project.

Money goes where money lies. Since 1967 and majority rule over the hill has gotten worser and worser.

With almost a thousand web shops and mostly non resident landlords and business owners, how can you stop the money leaving.

Minnie himself is from Bain Town. He now lives in the west. Good for him.

The same is true for shanty towns.

Unless you face the root causes of poverty and remove the businesses exploiting the poor, nothing will change. The rich will get richer and any one that's escapes poverty will immediately leave Bain Town but leave this tax exempt and highly profitable businesses in the area.

Another windfalll for the webshops who will reinvest their earnings made off the backs of poor over the hill people into over the hill businesses. Tax free.

With the ability of web financed businesses to trade tax free it will put legitimate businesses outside of over the hill at a competitive disadvantage.

But like web shops the profits of those businesses will not benefit the upgrading of over the hill. 5 years from now over the hill will be even poorer.

Keep in mind that 60% of the financial transactions over the hill currently occur in web shops.

No need to worry about Home Depot, Walmart or Costco coming to the Bahamas.

Our market is just too small, our barriers to free trade much to high, the Arawak Port monopoly with its preditory fees, our backwards banking system, slow legal system and xenophobic business community/politicians, poorly educated work force and impossibly high electricity costs is enough to deter theses world class companies from coming to the Bahamas.

DDK.

Unfortunately the fossil fuel cartel will suppress the development clean energy (solar, wind, ocean waves and geothermal) in a similar way that BEC suppressed clean energy for over half a century. FPL energy bills in Florida are down almost 50% over the last 10 years with the aggressive roll out of solar farms.

There are hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent on the construction of an LNG generation plant, shipment and storage of LNG fuel to the Bahamas. Not to mention the spin off legal fees, banking loans, environment consultancy fees, government taxes, jobs etc. There is just too much foreign oil money coming in for our greedy politicians to ignore. Solar just can't compete with this cash flow. Not to mention that BEC has a monopoly on power generation for the entire Bahamas except in the Haitian Shanty Towns. There is no other developed country in the world where power generation is owned by the government or monopolized by one company. The foundation is being laid for a new system of abuse and corruption for the next 100 years built on LNG. Bahamians will continue to suffer for generations to come while a few (Bay St and Sunshine Boys) will continue to accumulate wealth beyond measure. Make no mistake where the political elites get their primary financing from.

There are also large safety risks involved with liquefied natural gas which the country discussed over 20 years ago when a project to build an LNG plant off the coast of Bimini was being discussed.

Remember the environmental concerns back then? This time it worse because the storage will be at Arawak Cay and ground transportation on Bay St to Clifton Pier will have its own safety risks.

Wow, we do have a short memory. Forget about Oban, Baha Mar etc. Lets move on to the next foreign investor disaster.

The government, regulator and consumer protection agencies are doing nothing to protect its citizens against the predatory practices of the Canadian bank cartel. If they provided these types of services in Canada their licenses would be immediately revoked.

Instead a massive entourage of government officials go off on OAS meetings/"vacation" to Peru at untold cost to the Bahamian people with no accountability of cost and nothing to show for it.

We call ourselves an offshore financial but you can't do basic banking such as:

1. Electronically transfer funds from one commercial bank to a customer at another bank

2. Very soon there will no banks in Long Island

3. $15 to cash a cheque if you are not a customer of the bank

4. Electronic bank statements are not available online and put into the dysfunctional Bahamas post office system, taking 3 months to deliver, possibly lost or worse.

5. Two tier authentication for transfers not available on certain Bank Apps. Increasing the level of internet bank fraud. Causing massive amounts of spam and fishing for your bank information.

6. 1/2% unconscious conversion fees from US$ to Bahamian dollars going directly to bank profits.

7. Commercial bank profits and insurance company profits the highest ever. Customer service the worst ever.

8. Terribly long lines at the banks.

9. $2 to deposit a check in the bank.

10. 4 day wait to clear a check in the bank. 2 day/48 hour clearance excluding deposit date and withdrawal date.

12. It cost $60 in fees to send US$250 to pay educational costs abroad. Even higher if foreign exchange to Canadian dollars is involved.

There is no solution in site only talk, talk and more talk from those in power.

Only 2 people from the private sector. The rest are career politicians.

I am sure all matters brought before the Board will be held private and confidential with no transparency. So even if the person from the private sector objects he needs to keep his mouth shut in order to get his $40,000 a year director fee.

Also the Minister can over rule the Board, just like they overrule all the Boards of Bahamasair, Water and Sewerage, BEC, National Insurance etc.

Ain nuttin change.

A lot of hot air.

Just disclose in the Tribune the amount of money that the Peru trip costs the Bahamian taxpayer.

Once we know how much it costs we can make up our own minds if you are wasting our money or not. Simply telling use that you are responsible reminds me of the PLP and the former FNM government. Ain nuttin change.

But because we have no idea how much it costs, we can only assume it costs over $1 million dollars, that it was a joy ride, we will get absolutely no benefit from it and it will only make us more angry.

On second thought, don't tell us and let us live in blissful ignorance. So much for transparency.

Lol, we don't even care what you learned from the OAS meetings. We know nothing will be implemented to improve the country.

Not to mention the amount of fish and lobster they take out of Bahamian waters for “personal” consumption and the pollution from dumping thier waste in the water.

A net loss for sure.

Bahamians live giving away thier natural resources to foreigners while locals catch hell.

so true Tal.

Reece is 100% correct and should be applauded for standing up for his rights and for ceasing to tow the line.

Similar to the Oban approval I can't believe that experienced and successful businessmen like D'Agular and Symonette could have ever approve such nonsense. However, they have to keep quiet in case they are fired as well.

The problem is that Parliamentarians are wearing too many hats. MPs should write and approve laws, not run government departments. The job of running government on a day to day basis should be left up to persons appointed from the private sector and rotated every 5 years. Governments come and go but the true controllers have jobs for life.

Similarly Cabinet Ministers should come from the private sector and be devoid of politics.

We have created an untouchable breed of leaders who run the executive and legislature for 5 years with little accountability.