The Tribune

By DANA SMITH

Tribune Staff Reporter

dsmith@tribunemedia.net

THERE will be two questions on the much-awaited gambling referendum for the legalisation of a national lottery and web-shops, one pastor said yesterday after a meeting with Prime Minister Perry Christie.

Philip McPhee and three other pastors met with Mr Christie to give their position, and the position of some 30 other pastors on the gambling referendum.

They believe as the numbers business already exists and is “impossible” to remove, it should be regulated and taxed with the proceeds benefiting social programmes.

Dr McPhee said it was at this meeting that Mr Christie told him the referendum will consist of two questions, both of which were revealed to the group of pastors at the meeting.

“The prime minister was very cordial to us,” he said. “He allowed us to illustrate our position and then he presented his position to us by giving us the first opportunity to hear that it will be two questions and the questions themselves.

“So we’re the only people in the Bahamas who know it at this present time and we’re very privileged to do that and we will react on it and come back to him today on some further advice that we will put together to make sure that this referendum is certainly presented in the way that the entire Bahamas will benefit from it.

“We’re the first to know and the only people to know, right now, so I thought that was very gracious of him – the great respect he has for the church and for pastors who are standing for what we call equality for the Bahamian people.”

Dr McPhee would not divulge what exactly the questions will be and he could not say when Mr Christie would confirm the questions to the public.

Last month, in response to criticism from the opposition for not yet releasing the gambling referendum questions, the Prime Minister said he had to consider whether a national lottery should be a separate question from web-shop licensing and gaming.

A decision has already been made on what the question or questions will be, Mr Christie had said, and there is “no doubt” that Bahamians will fully understand the referendum on voting day.

“You would recall that I had taken a position that the lottery was not going to be in it. When I took the position, the question as framed – ‘do you agree with the regularization of web-shop licensing, regularization of web-shop gaming’ – it now has to be lottery added to it and the question is whether or not there will be one question with web-shop and lotteries or two questions with web-shop and lotteries,” he said.

“I have made the decision and am going to my colleagues with the decision because it’s cabinet government and I will have the Bahamian people apprised of the question.”