The reason the administration is worried about money is because they do not have a vision on how to resolve the problems neither do they have any idea exactly what the problem is. They talk amongst themselves including the opposition which seem just as clueless.

Problem. These devastating floods/hurricanes are unpredictable 100 year events which can occur in 2020 even if we just experienced one this year.

Problem. No vision. Same lousy solutions decade in and decade out. The southern islands will be rebuilt one by one despite global warming which has most of the Bahamian chain underwater in 200 years.

Problem. BEC will rebuild the same lousy above ground electricity distribution poles which can be blown down next year. Instead of putting the electricity underground due to cost. Watch the contractors and conflicts of interest very carefully.

Problem. We can no longer afford to have numerous settlements scattered all over the south and expect for all of them to have electricity, water, cable, proper transportation (air and sea), good education, healthcare and an "anchor project" each all courtesy of the government - we are selling pie in the sky. The cost of operating the southern islands is compounded by greed, theft, corruption, nepotism and a geriatric administration.

Solution. Consolidate the majority of the southern population on an island which is well above sea level. Build a new city of the south. Stop taking all of their VAT, duty, license fees etc. to Nassau to be wasted. Let the funds from the south be spent in the south. Let the south young people determine its own future.

Unfortunately none of this will occur. The educational system in these islands is so poor most people may not actually comprehend their true predicament.

The relief effort is excellent but if we don't learn anything from the disaster and stop rebuilding out of wood, in low lying areas, in very small settlements, with exposed electrical networks, diesel BEC generators and centralised government then we should expect the same results.

Remember Bamsi, $500,000 school room, BEC bribe to purchase inferior generators causing untold cost to the public, VAT implementation with no spending accountability, gas prices remain stubbornly high despite going down to $2 per gallon in the US, BEC bills not going down with lower diesel costs, building prices up by over 50% duty to VAT layering, government slow in paying out VAT reimbursements, numbers shops opened without any licenses and against the people's will, Baha Mar staff payments of $5m per month, now hundreds of millions need to be spent to rebuild the southern bahamas. S&P will downgrade us to junk and we will need to devalue the currency.

The businesses should not complain. They have increased their first cost by over 15% to cover the VAT on import and the VAT at the point of sale. They should not be out of pocket. I see their stores still full of people.

The government is broke and will need to use the refund money for hurricane relief for the Southern Islands.

Also the government will need the extra money for the national health insurance scheme. As taxes are not being raised the money has to come from somewhere. The businesses are the best ones to take the loss. Poor people have no money left after paying VAt.

Yes, like the 25% we own in Bank of the Bahamas.

Liquidators get paid first but their fees will run into the tens of millions of dollars. No budget, no cap, no performance based pay. Large liquidations are an accountant's dream.

What makes this liquidation fascinating is the conflicted signals that they are sending out. In all liquidations the first thing the liquidators woudl do is close down the operation to preserve shareholder value. However largely because of the "to big to fail" political syndrome this white elephant will stay open. Why would the liquidators want to pay staff if they are not working? Why would the liquidators want to pay the insurance of an obviously unprofitable hotel? Why would the liquidators want to get the contractor in to complete the hotel if the ownership may transfer from the current developer to the bank? Why would the bank want to pay to complete the project? Is the bank going to own the project and why?

The reason is that this project is not simply a business but it has a local political and geopolitical face. If the project fails then both government administrations have failed, both are to blame for over weighting the economics to one investment. Our relations with the east become strained. Both administrations are guilty of acting as simpletons thinking that one anchor project can be the saviour of an entire country.

We are seeing this simplistic thinking permeated with the transfer of the management of BEC to foreigners, government ownership in BTC, delusional thinking that Bamsi will feed the country, government's requirement for 51% ownership in the next cell phone license etc. etc. All of these projects will fail as political interference and personal interest take precedence over the best interest of the people.

Under what authority would the lenders advance funds to Melia? I can't imagine they payment of on going insurance for a hotel which has been open for years was contemplated under the construction loan agreement. If it's not in the loan agreement how can the bank pay it?

I would suggest that the government (via the Hotel Corporation) lends Baha Mar the $8m to pay the insurance. It is critical that we keep this hotel open so that the 1,000 employees have a job to go to.

He represents the only auditor that they could find who was not conflicted. Their first and second choices PwC and E&Y had conflicts. They probably looked at all of the Big 4 accounting firms and none of them could do it possibly due to conflicts. So they went down the ladder to the path of least resistance.

Unfortunately accountants are not developers, contractors or hoteliers so they have zero experience in running or marketing a development. They are bean counters, using the ancient english law of liquidations, which means to liquidate, close down, sell off. This is what liquidators know how to do best.

The are already making threats to close down the Melia due to the insurance not being paid. Let's see if the raise the money on Monday.

Banker, a devaluation would be good for our economy. See my comments above in response Newcitizen.

Currently the Bahamian dollar is not on par with the US dollar. The Bahamian dollar is actually worth 1/2% more than the US dollar! If you deposit a US$1,000 check in any bank they will only give you B$995. The $5 (1/2%) difference they call an FX fee, however I would argue that this is not an FX fee but a conversion rate because no matter which bank you go to the fee is the same and is fixed. This is cartel like behaviour that administration after administration allows to occur which rips off Bahamians by hundreds of millions over the decades. This is not a government charge (which I would be happy with because the government needs money and is broke) but it goes straight to the profit of Canadian banks which then dividend it to Toronto after Barbados gets its cut... the Canadian banks then cut jobs and close branches is places like Long Island where they do not care about local communities.

The banks do absolutely nothing to earn the 1/2% but we are paying for the privilege of converting a high quality world reserve currency (US$) into a non convertible, exchange controlled currency.

No wonder foreigners think we as Bahamians are stupid. I guess we believe anything foreigners tell us is true.

Newcitizen, we actually produce a Tourism product with a very high labour cost coupled with low worker productivity. By devaluing the B$ it actually reduces the cost of our product as most Tourist dollars are received in US$. Once there is a 20% B$ devaluation our hotels could bring down the cost of their rooms and restaurants and pass the savings on to the tourist. A lower cost product will bring more tourist to the Bahamas and increase GDP. It will be hard to increase Bahamian productivity without improving education or bringing down the cost of electricity, neither of which will improve anytime soon.

You can't increase business license fees, minimum wage, VAT, gaming taxes and national insurance as the hotels are already working at a loss and will have to pass these costs onto the tourist making our tourism product less competitive. Taxes will also need to be increased again to pay for the national health program which will start in January 2016. Perhaps this can be done by increasing national insurance again.

The government is providing essential services for which it needs to be paid and thus we have to have higher taxes. Also without increasing taxes we will never get the national debt down.

I think a devaluation will be the next thing that the government needs to do to increase competitiveness, especially with a low cost tourism product on our doorstep (Cuba). Tourist shop around and if they can go to Cuba for less money they will.

Devaluations to be credible must be sudden and large enough so they can be seen as credible. China gave no warning of its devaluation which increased their competitiveness as their products are now cheaper. Now the global markets are recovering after being caught off guard.

Looks like total national debt (including government corporations) at 3/15 was $6.3b versus 3/14 at $5.6b (an increase of 11% in one year).

External reserves at 3/15 were $829m and at 3/14 were $957m, a decrease of 15%.

Everyone should to tighten their belts and conserve their funds in case there is a rainy day.

A devaluation is not in the cards but some larger private businesses are complaining about high local costs (payroll, electricity, shipping and taxes). A one time devaluation similar to what China just did could perhaps increase our competitiveness.