The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

US Ambassador Herschel Walker has publicly accused the Davis administration of telling investors that in The Bahamas, “the rules can change after you have already made the investment”, in an extraordinary intervention following the government’s plan to take over regulatory power in Freeport from the Grand Bahama Port Authority.

The comment came in an opinion article a day after Prime Minister Philip Davis unveiled his reform. It is the second time in a month that Mr Walker has openly taken on the administration. Last month he dismissed as “fake news” the government’s complaint that undercover US drug agents had operated in The Bahamas without permission.

This time Mr Walker said he had read Mr Davis’s announcement on a new governance framework for Grand Bahama “with real concern”. He put the Freeport plan alongside overflight fees charged to American airlines and new tax demands on cruise lines, which he said he had raised earlier this year.

Like 186 other nations, overflight fees apply indiscriminately for services provided to flights for the safe and efficient passage of any flight that neither takes off or lands in the Bahamas but uses the nations sovereign airspace.

“Each issue looks narrow on its own,” Mr Walker said. He said that taken together they sent investors a single message, and that Grand Bahama could not afford to send it “because the island needs patient, long-term capital more than anywhere else in the country.”

“Changes are coming, details to follow” is the most expensive message a government can send to anyone deciding where to put their capital, he said.

“The people of Grand Bahama have waited long enough for the island’s comeback,” Mr Walker said. “I am asking the Davis government to make sure this new framework speeds that comeback up rather than putting it at risk.”

Mr Davis unveiled the plan on Wednesday night at the Grand Bahama Shipyard, where the government published a Green Paper on the island’s future. He declared that “the present way of governing Freeport will come to an end” and that whether change happens is no longer up for negotiation.

The 1955 Hawksbill Creek Agreement runs until 2054. It gave the privately owned Port Authority control over who may do business, who may build and how land is planned in the Port Area, in exchange for tax exemptions. Mr Davis called the arrangement colonial and said it had outlived its time.

Mr Walker said the agreement was “not a technicality”. He said generations of Bahamians found jobs because businesses trusted its promise of stable rules, and that investors from the United States and around the world built factories, shipyards, hotels and homes on it.

He set out three demands. Businesses that invested in good faith under the agreement should keep what they were promised. The government should publish the full framework, its legal basis and the timeline before anything takes effect. And licensees, investors and Grand Bahamian workers should be brought to the table now rather than after the fact. He said investors had more questions than answers: whether their tax and duty treatment, licences and contracts would be honoured, who would set fees and how they could appeal, and what the timeline was.

“Let me be clear about what the United States is asking for,” he said. “We are not asking The Bahamas to give up its sovereign right to govern Grand Bahama. We are not asking for special treatment for American companies.”

He also said nobody disputes that Grand Bahama needs better results. American businesses had long complained of overlapping approvals, unclear fees and slow decisions, he said, and Washington would welcome one transparent process with one clear point of accountability. He described the government’s website as beautiful and its Green Paper as impressive, and said the consultation period was welcome.

Mr Walker cited American investment in the island’s recovery, including what he described as a $120m redevelopment of the Grand Lucayan resort, Carnival’s Celebration Key cruise port and the Western Atlantic University School of Medicine. “But investors go where the rules hold steady,” he said.

On Wednesday, Mr Davis said the change would be made lawfully through Parliament and that “nothing will be done retrospectively”. He said licensees’ lawful rights would be identified, recorded and respected. He told foreign investors that certainty is the strongest incentive a country can offer.

The Green Paper sets dates for each stage. Public consultation runs from November 1 to April 30, 2027, with town meetings across the island and written submissions. The government will publish an account of who currently holds each responsibility by January 31, 2027, a White Paper by July 1, 2027, and draft legislation by December 31, 2027. It aims to pass the law in the first quarter of 2028. Mr Davis invited the Port Authority, its shareholders, licensees and staff to take part.

Mr Davis also framed the reform as a question of sovereignty. He cited his defence of Bahamian sovereignty at the United Nations General Assembly last month and asked what independence means if it stops at the Port Area boundary.

The Port Authority said yesterday that its rights and those of its licensees “must be respected” and could only be varied by agreement. It also said much of what Mr Davis announced had not been shared with it beforehand.

The DEA dispute erupted after the government told the US Justice Department that undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agents had worked in The Bahamas without authorisation, in the investigation linked to accused drug trafficker Jonathan “Player” Gardiner. “Bahamian officials are concerned that the United States helped to arrest a known drug trafficker?” Mr Walker said at the time. He later said the US “cannot accept the flow of drugs to our shores any longer” and urged the government to work with “its greatest ally”.

Attorney General Wayne Munroe responded that foreign agents whose conduct would normally amount to a drug offence could face prosecution if their work had not been authorised. Mr Davis said the dispute was about the process countries follow when they work together. “We ought to take the advice of the ambassador,” he said, adding that people should “wait and see”.

Opposition Leader Michael Pintard called the row a “dangerous moment” for The Bahamas and said such disagreements should be handled diplomatically. Last week he demanded to know in the House of Assembly whether Mr Davis agreed with remarks by the Bahamas’ ambassador in Washington, Wendall Jones. He said the Opposition should be briefed if there was a conflict with the US.

In June, the US Embassy barred American government employees from renting jet skis in The Bahamas, citing deaths, injuries and sexual assaults. Mr Walker urged the government to enforce its own rules. Water sports operators said they feared a 40 percent drop in business.

Mr Walker first visited Grand Bahama in June. He said then that he was “shocked” the island had not drawn more American investment and pledged to act as its advocate in New Providence.

He ended his article with an offer. 

“The United States wants Grand Bahama to succeed,” he said. “I have told Bahamian leaders many times that we are ready to do more.”