The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

FORMER minister of state for immigration Branville McCartney dismissed the newly released report on shanty towns as “not worth the paper it is typed on” and questioned whether the information is even accurate.
Mr McCartney said the report did nothing but tell the public what it already knew – there is a shanty town problem in the Bahamas.

He said the report says nothing about what the government intends to do or what actions it is willing to take.

“I looked at what they called a shanty town report and quite frankly I think it is a waste of time. They aren’t telling us anything new, nothing we did not already know.

“Immigration has had this information for some time now and it does not say what the government intends to do, if they intend to do anything at all,” he said.

“Ok, we have shanty towns in the Bahamas, now what? Yes, the water is contaminated, now what? We know all of this. This report does not say anything. It is not worth the paper it is written on. It is just ridiculous.

“They say there are 11 shanty towns, well when I was in charge there were 37 in New Providence alone – I saw them myself. So now this causes me to question the validity of this report. I am sure the numbers have grown and not decreased.”

Mr McCartney said the government needs to take action, and start by confronting the owners of the land.

“There is one minister in the government who said some months back that it is difficult to deal with the shanty towns because, according to Fred Mitchell, it seems that these people are protected by the elite class of the country,” the DNA leader said. “He said some of the land is owned by Bahamians who were given it for the purpose of agriculture. So if we know this why aren’t we doing anything?

“The government needs to send a warning, give notice not only to the people living in the Shanty Towns but also to the owners of the land because they are just as guilty.”

Mr McCartney said the government needs to deal with the problem right away, or risk sending the message to the people of the Bahamas that illegals can come here and get away with committing crimes that Bahamians can’t.

He demanded that the government tell the public, what it plans to do, how it will do it, and when.