Hi Robbi, your points are spot on but nobody in the government is actually listening or remotely understands the issues. I'll try in 4 examples in case some government MP is actually humble enough to read these valuable blogs.

1. Exchange control fees. A parent of a college student has to wire $300 to their child in college in the US. The bank and the government charges them $60 which equates to a full days pay for the parent. If the parent had an account in the US it would cost $0.

2.I am constructing a house in the Bahamas. I buy all the materials at Home Depot and pay VAT once on the shipment. If my Contractor buys the materials in Florida he has to pay VAT twice, if he buys the stuff locally he has to pay it 3 times. The cash flows don't work as VAT is paid up front so their is no recover for me....the poor black consumer.

3.If am saving for retirement i have to buy 14 mostly terrible Bahamian stocks. If I am a foreigner I can invest in the US stock market which has thousands of stocks to choose from and is going up every day.

4.If I am a foreign investor I can borrow at 3% in US dollars, if I am a Bahamian investor I have to pay 9%...if the bank will take the risk...by the way i'm black and poor...so I just ain ga get no damn loan from Royal.

I guess I ga just have to stay black and poor under the PLP or FNM.

because due to anti competitive policies Target, Walmart, Home Depot or any other massive retail chain that can massively reduce prices in the Bahamas, can't come to the Bahamas.

Did really good mats

i pay dem $2,600,000 and dey ge me $235,000

no wonder da treasury dem broke

Tal, you are completely wrong on this one.

Any town planning idiot with half an education or half a brain could have told the FNM or the PLP years ago that Ragged Island is neither viable or sustainable as a community.

Google.com put the 2010 population at 72. I guess all of these people actually worked for the government because to operate the island you need an Administrator, BEC, Water and Sewerage, National Insurance, town planning, a School, an airport, a mail boat, an airline that is willing to travel at a financial loss to the island, a post office, Bank of the Bahamas, a food store, defense force, police etc. etc. The Church has already started to beg for cash to rebuild. But none of our “leaders” are addressing the real truth. That the island should be closed down.

The question is how much does Ragged Island actually cost the Bahamian public to run each year? $5 million a year? $10 million a year? We will never know because the ignorant government doesn’t do local government accounts, it all gets piled up into the General Fund. Who benefits from this lack of transparency? The government does because it is essentially perpetuating big government and their god like status.

There was absolutely no need for Minnis to hedge the question on when the residents of Ragged Island should return or to advise his “subjects” that he is “not a technocrat” therefore is not qualified to answer the simple question. Apparently Minnis isn’t much of a leader either. Minnis, please simply tell your “loyal subjects” the truth which is plain for anyone who has thought this through at a high level: The residents of Ragged Island should never return, they should gather together whatever they can salvage and be relocated by the Government.

Secondly, the Government should be truthful as to the real cost of rebuilding Ragged Island. Is it $10 million? Also, the Church needs to get real as well. Remember, every last thing down to a nail has to shipped at a tremendous cost to the island.

Well said VDSheep.

Well Muddo take sic., you have raised a very important issue. The rating agencies will downgrade the Bahamas based on the probability of an Irma style strike in the next 5 to 10 years and our lack of insurance reserves or our ability to borrow for a major recovery effort.

I realize the FNM is working feverishly on hurricane relief to our hard-hit islands and we, as Bahamians, will all do what we can to help. However, I do believe the Bahamas government lacks the capacity to progress sound and progressive economic plans in parallel with hurricane recovery efforts. No offence to the FNM as the PLP lacked this ability as well.

Time is limited for the Bahamas’ financial system. If the FNM doesn’t start to think outside the box and if a hurricane like Imra hits the entire Bahamian island chain, the ability of the Bahamas to recover would be questionable at best and nonexistent at worst, as we have little capacity to borrow or resources.

Unfortunately, there is no quick fix or any series of knee jerk actions to solve these issues. Continuation of old and tired PLP/FNM policies and historical Bahamian economic fixes (such as massive single foreign investments such as Baha Mar and Atlantis) will not work going forward as this economic model is dead. Albeit the government doesn’t realize it. One good hurricane and Baha Mar will not reopen. It doesn’t even have an owner (other than the bank)!

We need rapid economic and structural liberalization, Bahamian privatization, southern island consolidation and most importantly the utilization of a massive amount of Bahamian and foreign brain power and intellectual capacity that has been left on the sidelines by the FNM and PLP for decades. Our brightest have left the country years ago. They have been replaced by ignorant politicians pontificating in the Guardian and Tribune day and night without a wooden penny to back it up.

Our problems range from the very large by decades of mismanagement of our energy plant and grid by BEC (which continues to this very day) all the way down to very small issues plaguing our youth like an underprivileged college student wiring $1,000 to her school and the bank charging her $150 in fees (most of which is bank profit and government taxes). The charge should be no more than $3.

Is anyone in power listening? I doubt it, let see how the hurricane season goes next year. Until then “it’s the peoples time”.

Great and forward looking decision by the FNM to evacuate the southern islands. It will save lives and allow first responders to focus on easier to reach and more populated areas of the Bahama islands.

Not to be negative but the islands of Acklins, Crooked Island and Inagua are very poor and mostly living of government subsidies. During recovery, the limited resources of the Bahamas government can be deployed in larger populated areas where the impact per person will be much higher.

Just think of the savings if these islands are not repopulated. No more government schools, no government clinics, no NI offices, no administrator offices, no BEC, no Water and Sewerage, no more subsidized mail boat service, no more airports, no more Bahamasair flights etc. etc.

The savings to the government will be enormous.

Tal, are MOT employees going to strike before or after Cat 6 Hurricane Irma with winds at 180 mph impacts to some extent every island in the Bahamas and all of the tourist have been evacuated?

While disaster strikes the FNM seems to be more interested it talking nonsense to the Tribune. Trust me, after Irma the NCL Tour Operators will be only too happy to have some business if their boats haven't been damaged by the hurricane.

We need to be more grateful as a people and not so angry all the time. God is not pleased.

They should hold their heads in shame. After allowing the twin plagues of VAT and numbers to be legalized on the poor.

When all hope is lost, the poor will grasp at anything. Thanks to the government.

This is what happens when you sell your soul to foreigners (Baha Mar, the Cruise operators, Bahamas Power, Atlantis, tourism marketing contracts, gated communities). Then add to this Bahamian family monopolies like oil and gas imports, big box retail, container ports, foreign banks/exchange controls, numbers houses, Ministry of Education pushing out D students to most Bahamians, governments strangle hold on Water and Sewerage, NI and Post Office, MPs pretending to be legislators but are essentially executives in government corporations or agencies (legislation is non existent) and a backwards democracy with one vote every 5 years along with zero local government.

These are all monopolies at worst, cartels at best.

Neither the FNM or the PLP will be able to grow GDP or solve the debt issue. The foundation is wrong. Devaluation has already been done, have you looked at the interest rates on savings accounts recently? There is nothing that will change the paradigm. Every man for himself Bahama Land, God for us all.