DonAnthony, you say you are an active retail investor. I would suggest you get your money out of BISX and the Bahamas for that matter before the Bahamian Dollar is devalued, the Government stops paying its debts, the deficit increases anymore, taxes are increased more on the middle class, VAT increases, unemployment goes up, crime goes up even more etc etc. Barely anyone has registered to vote in the Family Island (only 5,000 people) for about 15 seats. Not a very good sign. Hard to get a voters card, hard to get a passport, hard to get a drivers license, hard to get almost any ID in the Bahamas. Why? Why? Not good. Not good. Citizens without ID are basically stateless.

Instead I would recommend you invest in the S&P500 through the SPY ETF which has doubled in the last 5 years and has been going up ever since Donald Trump was elected.

Richard, an excellent article.

http://tribune242.com/users/photos/2016…

Hi John, I had a similar experience. However I had $2,000 of generator repairs, blown TV, blown gate opener, blown Printer and blown A/c unit. So add to the fake BEC bills for power not used, diesel fuel and lost productivity and BEC has cost me over $10,000. The cost and power cuts are on going. We really need to get rid of this company (BEC and BPL). While you're at it, change the government as well.

I can confirm what Leslie has said.

A family member just called me and said BEC Notices were left at the gate for the properties in the yard stating that the electricity was turned off. Because they could not get in the gate they left the notices but did not turn the lights off.

The properties in the compound have been getting power from BEC since 1964, just over 50 years. Yes, from time to time over the decades when the economy was slow and things were rough the payments were slow but BEC never in 50 years had to write off any bills owed by my family.

Secondly, my family sufferred major damage to their properties from the hurricane. Because no one can actually afford hurricane insurance, they were diverting funds from the utilities to ensure that they had a roof over their heads so when it rains they don't get more property damage. BEC had said they would not turn peoples lights of so they felt they had a little time to pay off the bills.

For BEC to come in the yard, and without notice, just shut off the lights of a customer after 50 years just show the level of contempt the PLP government has for its citizens. I don't blame the foreigners for this. I blame the PLP.

BEC needs to get some customer service or go back to where they came from. You could not get away with this nonsense in the US where these companies come from.

You would first need to give a grace period of perhaps a week as a courtesy to say that if you power bill isn't paid by Friday, November 25, 2016, your power will be turned off.

What have we come to in this country? Is there no civility left?

Every day government surrogates come out with some new foolishness. Yesterday Hope was talking about income tax. Today Davies is talking more nonsense about "crowd funding".

What the government really needs to focus on is making it easier for new businesses and existing businesses to work efficiently. They need to get back to basics and stream line the bureaucracy.

The regulatory and administrative cost to form a new business in the Bahamas is so big that it will discourage most. How can you talk about a sophisticated business concept such as "crowd funding" when no one can actually form a new business?

Currently all the steps are needed. None of which can be done properly online.

Company formation - legal cost $5,000. In the US $59.

VAT registration - accounting.

National Insurance registration.

Business license registration.

VAT returns, accountant needed.

VAT computer software - $5,000.

Customs duties on imports.

VAT on imports.

Brokers needed to get items into the country.

Generator cost when BEC fails, which is daily.

24 hours security due to theft.

Armed guard for daylight bugularies.

Untrained workers, due to a national D average.

Very high BEC bills, 3 times as high as the US.

High rental costs in a nice area as landlords try to keep up with VAT on business rental income.

Also people don't have any money to buy your products so sales will be very low.

After all dis its easier to save da lil check from da Chineese/Baha Mar, collect national insurance, hurricane relief and funds from social services and rest ya sef at home. At least it lil cooler now so ya don't need BEC on.

Well said Tal. I'm more and more impressed with your current views.

MonkeeDoo. I almost had a heart attack when Trump was elected. But as time goes on I am happy he was elected. The stock market is going up, bank stocks are going up, biotech stocks are going up, Trump said if the 6 trillion spent on foreign wars had been spent on US infrastructure they could have rebuilt America infrastructure twice.

So Trump is an isolationist and want to help poor Americans, that's good for America. Our government should listen and stop travelling overseas and try to help poor Bahamians.

Economist. Rationally you may be correct but we are dealing with an non transparent process. The process is opaque, poor Bahamians are left in the dark, accounting allocations can be done not based on usage but on the numeric number of houses or firms. We will have no clue how the allocations are done and you can bet your bottom dollar, as always, Freeporter will get the short end of the stick.

Economist did you ever wonder why after billions and billions of foreign dollars invested in the Bahamas we as Bahamian feel worse off? Crime is higher, our kids are less educated, less jobs, more people have their lights off, no one is registering to vote, BEC can't keep the lights on, our infrastructure is poor, illegal aliens abound and more and more of our land is being given away.

But all our government can talk about is the billions and billions of dollars they are bringing into the country like Baha Mar. With all this foreign money why I'm I worse off after it has been spent why do my kids feel they have no future? If the government would spend less time spending money flying to China and more time in Bain Town we would be better off.

The reason Freeporters will get jammed again is because allocation of hurricane cost is an illusion, its non-transparent, the process is opaque and if one really knew the facts non of the benefits are trickling down to the poor man.

So don't tell me that foreigners are paying their fare share of our economic mess.

Over the weekend I had argued that having foreigners coming to the Bahamas and buying $1 million dollar homes in exchange for residency is of little economic value to the Country because Bahamian are subsidizing their cost of living. Especially by way of electrical costs.But our government is so busy dealing with the Chinese and paying Baha Mar's electricity bill (diesel) it doesn't have time to check for its citizens. Also, the government, after giving away Freeport over 50 years ago, is busy giving away Andros before the next election. All for a couple of dollars. Just follow the money.

This is another example of foreigners taking advantage of poor Bahamians and our no clue government. Here you have foreign utility provider (GB Power), a foreign regulator (GBPA) coupled with bunch of foreign industrial companies utilizing most of the energy in Freeport (Borco, Shiping Port, Plastics etc).

In this instance a unilateral decision was made by GB Power to bill the poor residents of Freeport for the electrical hurricane repairs. No discussion with government, no town meetings with residence and no local regulator. GB Power would never ever do that in a developed country. They would be run out of town.

Our government is asleep at the wheel and the Freeport industrial base is only to happy to stick locals with the repairs because they can. GBPA (the regulator) could careless as long as it gets a favorable discount.

Freeport residents have gone through enough trauma. All they need now is to directly bear the cost of the hurricane repairs for electricity.

In a normal developed country these costs would have been paid for from an existing sinking fund retained by the utility provider, insurance and borne by the company from future earnings.

Ohdrap4. Regardless of weather the foreigners pay their bills or not, BEC is still loosing money to the tune of $20 million a year. I am a poor Bahamian paying my light bill of $100 a month, the rich foreigner living in Lyford Cay is paying his monthly light bill of $10,000 a month. He is using 100 times more electricity a month. Therefore he is contributing and causing 100 times more of the BEC losses of $20 million a year than I am because he is using so much electricity. We ignorant Bahamian BEC, we own the government, we own the national debt, we own BEC's debt which is to the larger extent being caused by foreigner using so much power.

Look at Baha Mar's light bill of $1 million a month. Who is paying BEC for all the diesel to keep their lights on? We the Bahamian people.

Add up the electrical usage of Lyford Cay, Old Fort Bay, Albany, Ocean Club, Bakers Bay, Baha Mar etc. and compare it to the electricity usage of poor Bahamians, you will see that BEC is mostly just here to service foreigners and is racking up $20 million in losses, $450 million of debt and $500 million for a new energy efficient gas plant just to keep their rich lights on, not mines.

To add insult to injury the Government after 100 years now says we can't run BEC so we have to pay foreigner $10 million a year to manage the company. How much more stupid are we going to get?

So through our simple minded policy of wanting foreigners to build $1 million dollar energy inefficient homes is not only bad for global warming its bankrupting average Bahamians who have to work to subsidize their life styles.

The more money the government shells out to BEC the less it has for education and healthcare. But the foreigners don't care. They fly out on their jets for healthcare and their kids Ivy League boarding schools abroad.

These tax exiles don't pay tax in their developed home country and they don't pay income tax to our simple minded Bahamian government who don't understand that this foreign investment is driving us broke.

Excellent point Tal. In the US there is no such thing as Permanent Residency just because you bought a house. The purchase of a home adds no value to the economy, in actuality it adds additional strain on an already bankrupted government.

Think of it this way: BEC, Water and Sewerage, National Insurance, the Hospital, Police, Ministry of Works, the public schools etc are all providing services to these foreign permanent residents and the government is loosing $1 billion dollars a year through increased debt providing these services, then these new residents are actually being subsidized by the government and we are loosing more money than is coming in.

Most of these foreigners then bring in Haitian, Jamaican, Filipino and Peruvian labor who also utilize government services and add additional strain to the economy. Thus increasing the debt even more. Also, they bring in all their supplies on their yachts and its questionable if they are declaring for customs.

Currently in many public schools the vast majority of the students are Haitian. The Haitians in Abaco are working for the foreigners but we as Bahamians are paying for their education.

In Abaco there are rich foreigners and Haitians, middle class Bahamians are disappearing.

We need to get rid of economic permanent residency and try to build our country the old fashioned way. Through hard work.