The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

How should Bahamians think about the Prime Minister’s announcement that his government will take out a $200m (or is it $400m?) loan from our former colonial masters to build a new airport for Grand Bahama? Is the Davis administration really the knight in shining armor that will ride in and deliver our poor suffering island from all its woes?

Clearly that’s the message this announcement aims to send, but look a little closer. The truth is, one of the main reasons for the stagnation of Grand Bahama would have been the actions of the government itself.

For example, under the Hawksbill Creek Agreement the Freeport area, the center of business and commerce on the island, is the sole responsibility of the Grand Bahama Port Authority. Regulations under this law allow for the Port Authority to maintain, improve and develop the Freeport area, however these have been woefully out of date for years. But every attempt to update these regulations and allow for the much needed rejuvenation of the port area and by extension the entire island, have been blocked by guess who? That’s right: none other than the government of The Bahamas.

Also, by law the Port Authority is supposed to carry the full responsibility for approving new developments in the Freeport area. Yet the government has insisted that the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection must also approve of any new projects, and the Bahamas Investment Authority (which answers to the Office of the Prime Minister) must also sign off. This amounts to inserting the central authority of Nassau into the business of Grand Bahama, in violation of the law.

It also makes attracting developments that will create new jobs for Grand Bahamians nearly impossible, as developers have to jump through multiple hoops and get approved separately by three different authorities, each of which is using a different set of rules and standards. Of course this drives away foreign investors, who can simply take their money elsewhere. It makes doing business for all Grand Bahamians extremely difficult, even though the whole point of Freeport is that it is supposed to attract investment and development because it is easy to do business here.

So efforts to improve and rejuvinate are blocked, and investment and development is discouraged. The predictable result it the sad state that communities in Grand Bahama, especially those in the East and West, find themselves in today. I do not believe these moves on the part of the government are unintentional.

Now the government wants to ride in on its white horse and play savior. But save us from what, when it is their boot that has been pressing down on the neck of Grand Bahama in the first place? Why not just remove the boot and allow things to operate as they were intended to in the first place?

If government simply got out of the way, any number of investors would be interested in building a new airport for the island. Instead, they propose to beset the public with an additional $200 million dollars in debt when families across the nation are struggling to make ends meet, our international borrowing status is in deep trouble and the National Insurance Board is going broke. Why should the suffering taxpayers be stuck with yet another huge burden? And where did this $200m number (or is it $400m?) come from anyway? How can they know how much it will cost when no plans exist yet for the construction work?

It is no secret why this is happening, and the Davis administration is by no means solely to blame. Going all the way back to Independence, successive governments have always had a problem with the ‘freedom’ of Freeport, and have tried to force it under their control. It is on the agenda of government to make things as bad as possible for Grand Bahama, so they can then make a big show of swooping in to the rescue. I’m not saying the Port Authority’s record doesn’t have its share of huge mistakes and failures. But is government control of Freeport really the answer?

Look at the total disaster of government’s attempts to control the tourism industry through the Bahamas Hotel Corporation in the 1970s and 1980s. Look at the state of our public corporations today, which continue to lose huge amounts of money year on year, meanwhile they can hardly keep the lights on, or the water pressure up, or a Family Island flight on time. Look at the government’s failed attempts to sell the Grand Lucayan Hotel, or the empty promises that the British Colonial Hotel in Nassau will reopen soon.

The people of Grand Bahama don’t want the government to ride in and save us. We don’t think they are up to the job and we believe government control will only make a bad situation even worse. What we want is for them to get their boot off our neck and get out of the way.

A Grand Bahamian in Economic Exile

May 10, 2023