Monday, May 17, 2010

Bahamas Government to bring to Parliament a new Public Service Bill that would permit ex-convicts to be hired in the public sector

Move by government to hire ex-cons in the public service lauded
By KEVA LIGHTBOURNE ~ Guardian Senior Reporter ~ kdl@nasguard.com:



Government's intention to bring to Parliament a new Public Service Bill that would permit ex-convicts to be hired in the public sector has met with the approval of the head of the Bahamas Public Services Union John Pinder, who has thrown his support behind these individuals being given a second chance.

"I don't have much concerns about it. I support persons being given second chances. There are a number of persons who may have been in prison for minor offenses, some who through misfortune caused them to commit some crimes and they should be given another opportunity," Pinder told The Nassau Guardian.

"I believe it is fair that those persons who have rehabilitated themselves be given another opportunity. If persons have the expertise or persons do possess skills, I believe that is one way of rehabilitating persons when they are released from prison. They are able to find gainful employment and certainly with government being one of the largest employers in the country it has to lead by example to give persons second opportunities," he said.

His comments came just days after Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham made the announcement in the House of Assembly, as part of a comprehensive plan his administration is putting in place to address the burgeoning crime problem.

At the time Ingraham, who was contributing to the debate on a resolution to reappoint a select committee to address crime, said this is something that could have been done by governments of The Bahamas if they chose to.

"There is no law that says you cannot do so, there is a general order that says you cannot do so. Criminals should know that we are determined to implement every measure possible to reduce the opportunities they have to wreak havoc on our community," Ingraham reported. "Young people, who want to turn around their lives, should know that the community will provide them with the opportunities to contribute in their own way to the common good of our country. But young people, and older people who need to turn their lives around should not be lulled into believing that the government is their parent; that the government, using the public purse, will bail them out of every bad decision regardless of how many poor decisions they make."

Pinder was quick to add that the first consideration should be given to all those persons who have worked in the public service for a number of years and have yet to be established.

"Certainly, I would like for them to be given first preference in being able to fill any vacancies that exist in the public service. I also hope that the prime minister with his new amendments would speak to those persons who have the ability to actually run for political office who work in the public service, to be given the opportunity to also do so, and upon not being successful being able to still come back to the public service," Pinder said.

"The reason I say this is a number of businesspersons or rich persons, wealthy persons, normally offer themselves for political office but they really do not have any experience managing government agencies or even having experience of knowing exactly how the government system functions. I believe that is another important aspect to amendment to the public service regulations," he said, adding that the regulations should also speak to a more modernized public service.

May 17. 2010

thenassauguardian

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Attorney General John Delaney denies port conflict

AG denies port conflict
By KEVA LIGHTBOURNE ~ Guardian Senior Reporter ~ kdl@nasguard.com:


Attorney General John Delaney yesterday dismissed a suggestion that there is a possible conflict of interest with his office acting as the lawyer for the government in the Arawak Cay Port deal and the law firm where he used to be a partner representing the Arawak Cay Port Development Company.

Delaney, who was speaking in the Senate, made it clear that no such position arises as he has excluded himself from any involvement with regard to the matter.

The question of conflict of interest arose when Opposition Senate Leader Allyson Maynard-Gibson called on the government to make a very clear statement on the issue to the Bahamian people so they would be assured that no conflict of interest exists.

Delaney said, "I wish to make it clear that I am a former partner of Higgs and Johnson. I am no longer a partner. There was an inference made by Senator Gibson, who referred to Higgs and Johnson being the attorneys for the Arawak Cay Port Company and me being the attorney general, by inference suggesting that there may be a conflict. In fact, she said she hopes there were none.

"Well I can confirm that in fact there is none. I want to make it clear that I am a former partner of Higgs and Johnson. I am no longer a partner at Higgs and Johnson and moreover I have had absolutely no contact whatsoever in the Office of the Attorney General with respect to this particular matter."

He added, "I insisted that I had absolutely no contact with that matter or indeed any other matter that my firm might have been involved with when I was a partner."

But Maynard-Gibson insisted: "I never said anything about him at all. The attorney general's office is the government's lawyer. That is a fact."

The government has been negotiating with local shipping interests for 18 months to establish the new port at Arawak Cay. A deal with 19 private shareholders was signed on Monday to create the new $65 million port.

The goal is that all commercial shipping will move from Bay Street by Christmas, opening up the city's center for redevelopment. The joint enterprise will be known as the APD Limited.

Delaney was a member of the law firm Higgs and Johnson and managing partner since 2007. He was appointed attorney general last November.


May 14, 2010

thenassauguardian

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Arawak Cay port development: A port Perry Christie cannot change

A port Christie cannot change
tribune242 editorial:



OPPOSITION Leader Perry Christie must have been in jesting mood when he threatened would-be investors that he would reverse any agreement signed with the Ingraham government that would locate the $65 million container port at Arawak Cay.

And to put the final seal on the threat, he declared that he was the person who would win the next general election. We pause here to suggest that were the PLP to win the 2012 election, Mr Christie, as leader, would be taking the Gordon Brown exit through the back door. We certainly never expect to see him prime minister again.

However, we all know that were he to try to change this agreement, before he could complete the first pirouette of the Christie shuffle he would be so buried in law suits that he would not be able to dig his way out -- nor would his followers be able to dig their way in to find him.

And now that Prime Minister Ingraham has secured the agreement with so many iron hoops, any hope of Mr Christie changing one tittle is no longer in the realm of possibility. It is as foolish of him to have made those threats as it was of Paul Adderley, many years ago on behalf of the PLP, to threaten Sol Kerzner that should Mr Ingraham lose the 2002 election he would have to renegotiate the Paradise Island agreement with the PLP government. The PLP lost the election. The Paradise Island resort was built in record time and became the catalyst that revitalised this country's tourist industry. Seeing Mr Kerzner take the plunge in a country written off as bad news, many substantial investors -- not drug kingpins as happened under the PLP-- followed. It was the turning point that led to this country's comeback.

"No successor government likes to contemplate having to renegotiate its predecessors' agreements, even bad agreements particularly with foreign investors," Mr Adderley told Mr Kerzner. "But this agreement is so bad, so exploitive -- that every Bahamian, including those who still support the Prime Minister together with the international finance community, would applaud a renegotiation."

We don't know who he thought he was fooling with such bombastic words and bullying tactics, but it was all a bunch of nonsense. All those who supported Mr Adderley in such puny thoughts, should turn their heads in shame today as they pass the Atlantis resort, a resort that saved this country's bacon during its rejected years. Mr Christie could not have been one of their number at that time because for the five years that he headed the Bahamas government it was openly talked that his one ambition was to leave the BahaMar resort on Cable Beach as his legacy to match Mr Ingraham's legacy -- Atlantis, Paradise Island. However, he missed the mark because of his indecisiveness -- as usual he had not signed the final agreement when time came for the changing of the guard.

And now to talk of relocating the container port when, according to him, he becomes prime minister is really a pathetic joke.

He says that given a second chance, he would move the port to his and his party's preferred location on the island's southwestern shores.

At the time that the 2005 Environmental Impact Assessment study was completed for the proposed commercial shipping facilities, the PLP government made the public believe that the southwest Bahamas was the location recommended by the independent advisers. It was only after the PLP was removed from the government that it was discovered that the public had been told a half truth.

As Tribune Business pointed out in an article last year, "based on the criteria employed by Coastal Systems International's assessment team, Arawak Cay scored 12 points, compared to the southwestern port site's 10 points on environmental impact. Where Arawak Cay rated especially high was on the minimal impact to the terrestrial environment and water quality."

However, Arawak Cay lost out because it did not fit in with the Christie administration's preferred site for its long-term master planning. That master plan took in a wide sweep of the southwest, where all kinds of developments, including private, had been planned. This excluded Arawak Cay.

Anyway, the guarantee of a 20-year exclusivity period for the Arawak Cay port development makes it impossible for Mr Christie or any other government to contemplate a change of venue.

The agreement is made exclusive for a 20-year period for not only all of New Providence and Paradise Island, but also within 20 miles of the shoreline and any other port for the landing of containerized, bulk or break bulk cargo or vehicles.

Anyway, Mr Christie's little joke was a good laugh while it lasted.

May 14, 2010


tribune242

Friday, May 14, 2010

Bahamians have to learn that they cannot change their history to accommodate their political agenda

History can't be changed to suit politics
tribune242.com editorial:


A CALLER to the Krissy Love radio talk show last week - in a discussion as to whether the image of Sir Stafford Sands should be on our $10 bill - said that to understand Sir Stafford one would have to understand the times in which he lived.

"Sir Stafford Sands was a creature of his times," said the caller. "It was the times in which he lived that made him think the way he did and do the things that he did." In his opinion Bahamians were not sufficiently mature to accept that position, but in fact that is the way all history should be understood -- in its own context, in its own time. To do otherwise would distort the facts.

The times in which Sir Stafford lived were times of racial prejudice.

A person of colour could not go to such public places as theatres, hotels, restaurants or even Bay Street barbers who cut only the white man's hair. Sir Stafford bought into the idea introduced to these islands in an earlier generation by American hotelier Henry Flagler, who in 1898 built the British Colonial Hotel (then a wooden building) and convinced the Bahamian power structure of those days that white Americans, particularly those from the south, would not frequent the islands if there was a mixing of the races.

And so to protect the tourist industry that he had taken from a short term winter resort to a year-round money spinner, Sir Stafford was intent on keeping the hotels, and any area that a visitor might frequent, exclusive.

This was a matter over which Sir Stafford and Sir Etienne Dupuch -- who in 1956 was threatened with arrest on the floor of the House when he introduced a Resolution to break down racial discrimination in public places -- battled for most of their political lives. Eventually Sir Stafford saw the light, but as Sir Etienne was to write of his friend on his death, it was too late when the scales fell from his eyes.

"If you want to see a monument to the business genius of a man...look around you in the colony today," Sir Etienne wrote in 1972. "Still... he was not a wise man in the all-important area of human relations. The time came when Stafford saw the light. But it was too late..." However, it was not too late for these two strong men in their personal relations. They each respected the other, and in the end the two arch enemies closed their lives, the closest of friends.

Sir Stafford was an enigma. There were those who called him a racist. There were others, mostly persons of colour, who would resent such a suggestion. There were two sides to the man.

One caller to the Krissy Love show was one of the many who could say with all sincerity: "I don't think he was that much of a racist. He was good for black people." She said her aunt was a nanny for Sir Stafford's daughter, and she as a child wore many of his daughter's hand-me-downs. "He was good to us, we were so poor."

There was another, a constituent in his City district, who told of his concern for his constituents who had outside toilets and how he gave them money to improve their situation.

In 1940, said another caller, "our economy was rock bottom -- there was nothing in this country, there was no way out for us." She said Sir Stafford took his own money and went around the world to build the country's tourist industry and because he was white he was able to bring people in. He took the police band on his trips with him. "They were all blacks," she said, "he ensured that they had good rooms in hotels, he ensured they were treated with respect and he joined them in their rooms. His own money paid for these trips."

She told how he took care of the entertainers and how he made certain that such Over the Hill nightclubs as the Cat and Fiddle and Silver Slipper prospered.

Troubadour Nat Saunders was on the show and admitted that as far as entertainers were concerned the UBP government was better for them than their own black government. On another occasion and in a different context, entertainer Leroy "Duke" Hanna said: "Sir Stafford Sands projected us, all of us, the great bands headed by people like Freddie Munnings Sr, the musicians, the dancers, the singers, the showmen...Sir Stafford made sure we were there on every tourist campaign trip. Culture was tops and well appreciated under Sir Stafford and his colleagues. But it just started dying after 1967..."

Yes, it started dying as the race card was being played loud and clear to create hatred and suspicion for the purpose of dividing Bahamians and winning elections.

Today, the PLP and those tainted with their racial hatreds have come, in the words of Mark Antony at the bier of Julius Caesar, not to praise him, but to inter the good that he has done in this country with his bones, so that whatever evil they might have perceived in him can grow, prosper and be enshrined for posterity. However, Sir Stafford touched and uplifted so many Bahamian lives that we do not think that Fred Mitchell and his ilk will be able to strike him from the $10 bill in the future.

As one caller told Krissy Love, Bahamians have to learn they cannot change their history to accommodate their political agenda. And, what we must also remember: The history of the Bahamas did not start in 1967. Many sacrifices were made by many Bahamians before then to make the successes of 1967 possible.

May 13, 2010

tribune242

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Perry Christie would reverse the $65 million Arawak Cay container port deal when he is returned to the office of Prime Minister

Christie 'would reverse $65m container port deal'
By PAUL G TURNQUEST
Tribune Staff Reporter
pturnquest@tribunemedia.net:



PLP Leader Perry Christie has warned would-be investors in the government's $65 million Arawak Cay container port that when he is returned to the office of Prime Minister he will reverse the deal.

Describing himself as the person who intends "to win the next general election," Mr Christie said his position on the matter has not changed.

He said: "My position on the $10 bill is known. My position on the port is known, and time doesn't change that.

"What political organisations do is review its own thinking on a matter with respect to the issue. And there is nothing to date that has convinced me that there should be a change in that thinking."

Describing the Hubert Ingraham-led government's decision to relocate the container port to Arawak Cay as an "abominable mistake", Mr Christie said the move would work against the beautification of the downtown area.

"I find it very difficult to understand how the government of the Bahamas can proceed with this matter. I do not believe, no matter how they try to hide the existence of that port, I do not feel it is right to put an industrial centre next to the Fish Fry and destroy what would otherwise be a scenic drive along West Bay Street."

Mr Christie added that the project seems to be littered with "major" flaws considering its enormity and the expense that would have to be undertaken to do it.

With the next General Election expected any time within the next 18 to 24 months, sources within the FNM have stated that Mr Christie's position on the matter would mean very little, even if he were to hold the seat of Prime Minister.

"I as a citizen of this country am not threatened by anything that Perry Christie says he will do because considering his history, he will do nothing," the source laughed.

Brandishing such remarks as being "typical of the PLP" he went on to add how the PLP had also threatened to reverse the deal on Atlantis which was first refused under the PLP but later signed after the FNM came to power in 1992.

"The PLP would be opening themselves to a litany of lawsuits. So that is a political argument at best. Once this agreement is signed that is it. These stakeholders can sue them for attempting to stop it.

"But Mr Christie should know better. He is trying to make this deal fail before it gets off the ground. He is trying to instil fear in the hearts of the stated investors and those yet in the pool. That is unfit for a former Prime Minister to be doing, particularly in this current climate," he said.

In thanking all those parties involved in making the signing a success, Prime Minister Ingraham told the press on Monday that it took "great effort" on the private sector's part because they were faced with reducing income which they are now making, and having threats by an Opposition Party that it would discontinue the operation at Arawak Cay.

"And so they had to be bold and take my word and my action for it that a deal done with the government of the Bahamas is a deal done, irrespective of any noise to the contrary in the marketplace.

"The government therefore, looks forward to a harmonious relationship between the private sector and ourselves. We expect that the port will be managed by the private sector and not by the government," he said.

May 12, 2010

tribune242

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Why Did Sir Stafford Sands leave the Bahamas?

So why did Sir Stafford leave?
tribune242.com editorial:


WHY DID Sir Stafford Sands leave the Bahamas?

This is a question still debated today. The question is often answered with an air of great authority by those who haven't a clue what they are talking about. Anyone who lived during the sixties, but were not a part of the PLP brotherhood, would be a fool to ask such a question. They all knew what it meant to be ostracised, victimised, denied jobs reserved only for followers of the "Chief", and verbally abused. Many of them, both black and white, packed their bags and left.

Even Krissy Love, host of the radio talk show "Issues of the Day", whose topic was the dispute over Sir Stafford's image being put on and then taken off the $10 bill, admitted that her family was one of those who also left the Bahamas during that period. In the sixties, she said, her parents could not deal with the way black people were being treated by the new black regime. Yet, Sir Stafford Sands, a white man, is called a traitor because he also left, only to return in death. Krissy wanted to know if her family would be tarred with the same "traitor" brush. The caller to her show fumbled, but did not answer.

Another caller, following the same trend of thought, felt that if a person were a part of a defeated government, then left the country because they were displeased with the loss, that person would be the traitor. At times when we listen to some of the callers to these radio talk shows, we often wonder what God was thinking when he was so stingy in his distribution of common sense.

It has been said that when Sir Stafford left for Europe he swore he would never return to the Bahamas. That is not true.

On the floor of the House when the Speaker read Sir Stafford's resignation to members, Sir Lynden denounced him, charging that he was "obliged to run" from the Bahamas because he was a "total embarrassment to his party." That also was not true. On another occasion, Arthur Hanna, recently retired governor-general, declared that Sir Stafford left because "he wanted nothing to do with a country run by blacks." Again not true. It was a claim made against a man, who unlike his social peers, did not attend the then exclusive all white Queen's College as a student. He was educated with black students at Government High School -- the same school later attended by Lynden Pindling. Sir Stafford had made it clear that he had every intention of returning home every year. "I will always be available to work for the party during the time when I am in Nassau each year," he said.

Around the 1967 election Sir Stafford was not a well man. A chain smoker, he suffered from a serious bronchial condition. In April of that year he spent six weeks in Miami for treatment of his problem. That was three months before he announced his resignation from the House. But soon after the PLP became the government in January of that year, a reign of terror had been started against Sir Stafford.

In May his wife had had enough. She made a statement in The Tribune that their home, "Waterloo", was not for sale. She said she was "sick and tired" of the harassing calls she was receiving. She wanted her tormentors to know that she and her husband were not selling their home, but intended "to stay and reside in it."

Up until the day of his resignation from the House, Sir Stafford, who had given up his law practice mainly for health reasons, had every intention of spending his winters in the Bahamas. And so, he didn't leave because he was a traitor, he was driven from his country by a hate-filled, racist government and its supporters. He no longer felt safe in a country for which he had worked so hard, but which his tormentors unjustly accused him of "raping."

On the floor of the House another uncouth member of the PLP accused Sir Stafford "and his gang of gangsters and hoodlums" of causing Bahamians to suffer. "He should be brought back here, put into a barrel of tar and rolled into a pit of fire for what he has done to the people of this country," said the PLP member from the floor of the House. This was one of this country's new legislators speaking.

No wonder there was a lot of unease in the country.

No wonder Sir Stafford and so many others-- both black and white -- packed their bags and left.

Just before their election victory, Sir Lynden had told the foreign press that if the PLP won the 1967 election his government would retain Sir Stafford as Minister of Tourism.

Their bitter anger over the years probably stemmed from the fact that they had lost their prize -- a prize that they had planned to use and abuse.

Five years after his resignation Sir Stafford died of cancer in the London Clinic in England.

There are Bahamians who maintain that he never came back to the Bahamas. He certainly came back to a Bahamas that he had no intention of ever leaving. He came back in a casket and is buried in the family plot in St Matthews cemetery.

There were callers to the Krissy Love show who wanted to know if Sir Stafford had any family left in the Bahamas. The answer is yes. This is his daughter's home, and the home of one of her two sons, Sir Stafford's grandson. They both live and work here. For them this is home, as it was home for their father and grandfather. And the vitriol that is now being spewed by the ignorant against the man they feel gave so much of himself to his country, brings them great pain.

May 12, 2010

tribune242

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

There is a "very, very high possibility" that oil will be found in Bahamian territory as a result of exploration currently underway

'Very high possibility' oil will be found in Bahamian territory
By ALISON LOWE
Tribune Staff Reporter
alowe@tribunemedia.net:


THERE is a "very, very high possibility" that oil will be found in Bahamian territory as a result of exploration currently underway, Environment Minister Earl Deveaux has said.

Meanwhile, the environment minister stated that the catastrophic consequences of the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will "directly affect (The Bahamas government's) approach" to how it manages any oil or gas resources that are discovered.

"We would have the top experts in the world advising us and would certainly look for the best in class to ensure our oversight of any oil exploration or drilling in The Bahamas is done with the highest safeguards," said Dr Deveaux.

He said his understanding about the likelihood of oil being found in Bahamian territory, where a number of companies currently hold licenses for such activity, is based on conversations he has had with persons involved in the industry, who have to come to his Ministry to seek permission to go ahead with exploration in The Bahamas, and from findings in neighbouring countries like Cuba.

Dr Deveaux said it would be "impractical and unreasonable" to say that the Bahamas would shy away from oil exploration or drilling as a consequence of the potentially environmentally-devastating oil spill that officials are currently seeking to contain off the coast of the US state of Louisiana.

"The world is not going to shy away from oil because of this accident. This is not the first or the last," he added.

While such comments may not be news to the ears of environmentally-conscious Bahamians who would fear the impact of an oil spill in Bahamian waters, other comments from the US Coast Guard official overseeing the Gulf of Mexico oil spill may be.

Commandant Admiral Thad Allen yesterday told the US-based CBS news show "Face the Nation" that there is at present a "very, very low probability" that the oil slick released from the Deepwater Horizon spill will travel around the Florida coast and affect the east coast of the United States.

Fears had been raised that if the slick were to come in contact with the "loop current" - a warm ocean current that moves clockwise through the Caribbean Basin to the Gulf of Mexico and then the Florida Straits - Bahamian waters and islands could be affected.

While the situation remains relatively unpredictable, Commandant Admiral Allen told the Sunday morning news show that the loop current "is significantly south of the southern edge of the spill right now."

"I think it is a very, very low probability it will be impacted," Allen added, noting that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is studying the issue. "It does not appear to be a threat right now," he said.

At present it is estimated that 5,000 barrels or 210,000 gallons of oil are being emitted from the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil well, following the explosion and subsequent collapse of the oil rig there, which is licensed to British energy company, British Petroleum.

Efforts to stymie the flow of the oil were setback over the weekend after plans to drop a 98 ton "containment dome" over the oil leak and siphon oil to the surface did not go as planned.

The placement of the dome was postponed after engineers noticed a build-up of crystallised gas inside the chamber.

Commandant Admiral Allen stated that officials are now considering using a "junk shot" to stem the flow of oil.

This would involve shooting a mix of debris - including shredded tyres and golf balls - into the well at high pressure to clog it.

Meanwhile, crews have begun to drill a relief well into which oil from the original well could be channelled, but this is estimated to take between one and a half to three months.

May 10, 2010

tribune242