Delta.

DonAnthony, you are absolutely correct. Currently the government is borrowing $722 million, which is 10% of the entire debt of the entire Country. I find it hard to believe that there are so many old invoices that have "suddenly" come due. Dey (we) gettin swing again.

A lot of this debt has been accumulated by the government "for profit businesses" which have never been accountable to the people and will not be accountable by this FNM either.

The only way to stop the bleeding before we go bankrupt is to sell Bahamasair, Sell the 51% of BTC owned by the government, sell water and sewerage, sell BEC or whatever they call it now (BPL), sell Bamsi, sell Bank of the Bahamas, Sell the mortgage corporation, sell ZNS, sell the Port , sell the airport, make these damn foreigners (hotels especially) pay some taxes etc. etc.

If we don't sell these business the debt will be well over $10 billion by the time the FNM is completed and we will need to devalue the dollar...which is already almost worthless.

Borrowing $722 million is not credible...but there is an insatiable demand for government debt both within the country and internationally.

I'm skeptical that the government actually has $400 million in unpaid legitimate invoices. The simple solution is not to borrow the $400 until the bills are verified. If the funds are borrowed then it immediately legitimizes the bills and everyone will be calmorouring for payment. Each bill must be fully scrutinized and make the vendors wait. People are doing sloppy work or provide fraudulent invoices to the government because they know if they wait long enough they will be paid. And what about the $800,000 Ingram said was missing from the Treasury?

D’Aguilar making the same mistakes as the PLP and the FNM's previous administrations. In no developed country (US, Canada, Europe, Japan etc) does the government run an airline. Why? Because it is not the function of government to run businesses. And if the government runs a business it can't be profitable. Why? Because there are no shareholders to be accountable to on a quarterly basis and via an Annual General Meeting where they can be tossed out for incompetence. Well, perhaps some accounting every 5 years via an election but that doesn't stop them from losing money for 5 years!

Pulling out of domestic routes is an excellent idea. I go to Long Island regularly and Bahamasair is late a lot. Most times Southern Air leaves early. The new planes that the government just bought for $250 million are constantly breaking down and one puff of wind completely destroyed one beyond repair. How is that possible?

So I say, get out of local routes, subsidize local airlines to fly to far away islands that are not profitable and subsidize international airlines to provide airlift from non profitable destinations to assist tourism.

Shut Bahamasair down!

Tall, you are absolutely correct. Once the ballots are move and stored anything could happen.

Not useful as we have very low octane gas which is just above diesel in its ability to pollute the environment.

The national average for high school students is now A

Crime has been eliminated.

Full employment has been achieved.

The Bahamas now has a AAA bond rating.

The national debt has been eliminated.

Each Bahamian will get a check for $1,000 from the Government.

Actually the Bahamian people are subsidizing foreign gated communities because

1. VAT is a regressive tax hurting the poor black people who buy more per capita

2. No income tax so all the stock market capital gains of foreigners are not taxed. In their developed home countries they are taxed at a rate of 20 to 30%

3. BEC, Water and Sewerage, Bahamas Air and everything else is utilized more per capita by the foreigners with their over-sized and homes, yachts and private jets than Bahamians. All of these government institutions are run at massive losses in Bahamian dollars and the government debt is owed by the Bahamian people. While the foreigner keep their money safely in US dollars out of the country.

I could go on and on but whats the use. Our dumb politicians have no idea how to fairly spread the cost of their incompetent government between foreigners and Bahamians.

RBC also reducing hours in Long Island to 3 days per week.

We are being forced to bank at the Webshops which are always open and have branches in every settlement.

John, excellent analysis.

I would like to add that Cable Bahamas lost -$16.6 million last year and has long term debt of $474 million (that almost half a billion dollars). At the same time Cable's cash balances have dropped rapidly from $63 million to $34 million at the end of last year (information source: Cable Bahamas web site, https://www.cablebahamas.com/media/file…).

With such a rapid drop in cash balances I wouldn't be surprised if they have no cash left as they move into the Q1 2017 taking into account the capital intensive roll out of cell towers. We shall see soon enough.

The capital raise is targeted at institutional investors such as pension funds, mutual funds and high net worth private clients.

John, I think your comparison to BoB is useful but while Cable Bahamas has been mismanaged through aggressive expansion into highly competitive commoditized markets (Netflex, internet, cable, wireless etc) the problems of BoB point more towards financial irregularities which appear to have been covered up because no forensic audit has been performed at BoB.

Personally I wouldn't put a penny into this capital raise. Like BoB I believe they will be forced to stop preference share dividends due to cash flow issues. Share dividends have already been cancelled.

The other problem is the opaque and byzantine relationship with the government owning majority shares in the cell license but not parent, so how does that work? Essentially it appears to be a company within a company, so who will issue the new debt? Who's financials will they show in the prospectus? If debt is issued will the government retain 51% of the voting rights of the cell license? Why would you buy debt and leave government in control? Why is the government involved in this in the first place? With 4 credit downgrades in the last 4 years and massive amounts of money needed to fix the dump and hurricane repairs doesn't the government have anything better to do other than meddling in the affairs of a private company?

I don't think this will end well.

http://tribune242.com/users/photos/2017…