The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

ANY FUTURE decision to be made on renewal of licences for mining aragonite have to be made in the interest of the state and people, a former Senator has told The Tribune.

FNM Deputy Chairman Dr Duane Sands shared his personal views on the issue amidst calls for the government to renegotiate its terms in an existing aragonite production agreement that could see the Bahamas earn royalties at levels that could reduce the national debt of $5 billion.

“I think that question has been asked and it’s an important subject. I think as the licences come up for renewal, decisions clearly have to be made in the interest of the state and the interest of the people,” he said.

“So if you now know what you didn’t know before, then your decision should be informed by what you know now. I would hate to see that you go ahead and renew a licence on terms that are not reasonably favourable to the Bahamian people.”

Last week, Bahamas Public Services Union president John Pinder chided successive administrations for allowing the contract to continue which “gave away the country’s natural resources for a pittance.”

Mr Pinder, who is also president of the National Congress of Trade Unions of the Bahamas (NTCUB), urged officials to introduce new conditions that would allow the government to receive $350 per ton of aragonite.

Currently the government receives $2 per ton while the Billingham Dredging Corporation sells aragonite they mine in the Bahamas for $900 per ton.

In response to the union’s suggestions, Environment Minister Kenred Dorsett told the press at cabinet: “We’re not following the union’s direction.”

“I’ve spoken in parliament on this matter, on the fact that we are now moving to create the national resources unit in my ministry. I have spoken about salt, I have spoken about aragonite, I’ve spoken about oil, all of our extractive natural resources and the people of the Bahamas getting through the government fair compensation for the exploitation of those resources so this is nothing new,” he said.

“With respect to aragonite we are looking at the entire legislative framework because the existing legislation that is on the books, which is quite dated, was an approval for a specific company to carry out the undertaking in the absence of comprehensive environmental regulations governing the activity so we’re looking at the entire sector,” the minister added.

In an interview with The Tribune on Thursday, Dr Sands agreed that a question arising from the current issue of royalties and the country’s national resources is “how do we ensure within the legal framework, existing contracts, etc, whether the resources of the Bahamas provide adequate benefit to the people of the Bahamas.”

He also raised concerns about what happens to local aspiring entrepreneurs when the question is answered and applied to existing agreements with the Grand Bahama Port Authority, the AUTEC Base in Andros and Morton Salt Company in Inagua among others.

“If I discover that there is value in something, you know the saying that ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’, and I build it into value, you now come along and see that there is huge value in it. And you say, that can’t be right for one person to be making all this money and I didn’t know that the value was there before,” he illustrated.

“Decisions had been made in the past that were probably made in good faith, and so now it becomes very, very difficult to again come and say ‘we want 50 per cent of that’. If we do that, then the question is when you go ahead and build another successful and thriving business, does the state now come in and do the same thing to your business? I think that the question, having been asked, is a very important one,” he reasoned.

Dr Sands also cautioned the public about being disillusioned by some social media posts that, if a deal is renegotiated, “all Bahamians could become millionaires.”

“It does not work like that,” he said, re-emphasising that resolving this issue must be done “within the framework of the law and within reason.”

• See Insight, section B page 10.