no. you are not looking for bahamians to run dat.

how come you never see all these nice jobs in the newspapers being advertized?

how come all of a sudden a complete board of directors is appointed in a non transparent manner?

why are all the contracts done in secret?

Brian, you have well articulated that there is massive overregulation but you have not give one single solution.

Maybe because the protected legal profession charging 2.5% on every land transfer, or the complete lock out of foreign lawyers, or the exorbitant cost of $5,000 lawyers charge to incorporate a company when it can be done online in the states for $150. Sounds like a business crushing cartel to me.

Here are some more monopolies you can break up to get business moving again:

what about the money stolen through the monopolistic importation of all fuel into the country?, what about the 20 year Arawak Container Port monopoly over charging Bahamians? What about the exchange control cartel fee to convert funds of 1/2%? What about the BEC monopoly of extremely high prices? What about the shut out of solar and wind energy?

The economic system is dysfunctional. One bad hurricane across Nassau and the house of cards falls apart.

Ok, but what about the money stolen through the monopolistic importation of all fuel into the country?, what about the 20 year Arawak Container Port monopoly over charging Bahamians? What about the exchange control cartel fee to convert funds of 1/2%? What about the BEC monopoly of extremely high prices? What about the shut out of solar and wind energy?

The economic system is dysfunctional. One bad hurricane across Nassau and the house of cards falls apart.

Default, devaluation and junk status here we come.

Absolutely correct. Also, keep us poor, black and dumb with a D average in school and almost all the school buildings needing to be condemned because they are not renovated.

The rich foreigners, bay street and east street boys and their bought out PLP and FNM cronies don't care because they live in their gated communities, don't pay BEC, have their kids at the best schools in the US, run retail and oil monopolicies and control the government.

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”.