Island Luck CEO Sebas Bastian, left, with Prime Minister Perry Christie.
By KHRISNA VIRGIL
Tribune Staff Reporter
kvirgil@tribunemedia.net
THE Gaming House Association yesterday presented the National Emergency Management Agency with more than $250,000 to aid in recovery efforts in the central and southern islands following the passage of Hurricane Joaquin.
The cheque for $257,552.05 was presented to Prime Minister Perry Christie at his office and immediately handed over to NEMA Director Captain Stephen Russell.
Island Luck CEO Sebas Bastian told The Tribune yesterday that this donation is not all that is to be expected from web shop owners.
Mr Bastian said he is in the process of procuring temporary housing units for people who lost their homes when Joaquin churned through the central and southern Bahamas with 130mph winds.
Mr Christie said yesterday that Cabinet is discussing the matter, with a view to have the trailers brought into the country duty free. He added that the government saw an acute need for the temporary units given the thousands of people left homeless or displaced by the category four storm.
Mr Bastian said: “This is something that the team made a collective effort to do. Everybody is doing their part in bringing some sort of relief to the affected residents of the southern islands.
“Obviously for Island Luck you know we’re engaging in importing a lot of the mobile homes to house a lot of the displaced families and just encouraging others to do the same. Everyone just has to do their part and together we can do what needs to be done.”
The temporary housing units are 33ft in length and 10ft in height. Mr Bastian said he recently lived in a similar unit while on a camping trip and found the structure to be very comfortable.
“I could see myself living in one of those, if I had to for an extended length of time.
“They can hold a fridge, stove, air-condition, you can shower, and there are beds. It’s a roof over your head. It might not be as big as what you are accustomed to, but it’s definitely something to fill the gap in the interim as you rebuild your home,” Mr Bastian said.
Mr Christie also said that the government did not want to handle donated hurricane relief funds. He said a committee would be appointed to accept and oversee these funds.
“I have indicated that the government itself does not want to handle the money raised with respect to the hurricane and therefore we will have formal sets of appointments. To that end we have assembled the reconstruction team headed by a former director of (the Ministry) of Works, Melanie Roach.
“We have secured separate accommodations because NEMA itself does not have the physical capacity to house this team and this team will be working with NEMA specifically (on) the element of restoration and being able to in the shortest possible time restore to as near to normal as possible infrastructurally.
“So I would like to indicate that we are going to have a very formal arrangement as has been in the past where we have had noted persons from the financial sector who have agreed and volunteered to lead the fund raising effort and the accounting capacity. NEMA’s external auditors are Deloitte and Touche and they still remain. In addition we are going to have accounting personalities from various firms aligned with this cause so that we could move rapidly,” Mr Christie said.
Comments
Well_mudda_take_sic 9 years, 1 month ago
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John 9 years, 1 month ago
So where were the tents that were donated after the 1992 hurricane? At least these can allow persons to store what they salvaged and/or be used in the relief efforts to keep donated supplies from the elements.
Sickened 9 years, 1 month ago
PLP sure has no problem accepting proceeds of crime! What a disgrace!
Whatever happened to our Proceeds of Crime Act 2000 - An Act to Empower the Police, Customs and the Courts in Relation to Money Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of The Proceeds of Crime and For Connected Purposes?
Being a Bahamian is REALLY embarrassing right now!
bahamian242 9 years, 1 month ago
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Sickened 9 years, 1 month ago
You know they probably handed over $500,000 total in cash (in two separate envelopes). One over, one under.
TalRussell 9 years, 1 month ago
Comrades just because you never really got see which Horse da PM and his cabinet colleagues were riding in the Numbers Referendum - doesn't mean's you didn't hear all the loud PLP horses galloping.
I done picked Minister Obediah - can you guess which one is Obediah?
....//https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_52nwt2ETSU
TalRussell 9 years, 1 month ago
Comrade Tal's note. Granted da "Pot Cake" Leslie is not member cabinet but did you notice, I just couldn't leave such a colourful PLP character out my video.
Regardless 9 years, 1 month ago
Web shops were the only going retail concern in many of the islands effected No surprise here. Just reinvestment on their part.
MonkeeDoo 9 years, 1 month ago
Sickened: What galls my arse is the openness of it all. Right in your damned face. Like we should all love these bastards because they are so generous. Generous with poor people's money. They aren't even modern day Robin Hoods. They take from the poor to enrich themselves. Can you imagine if white people had started this kind of business. They would have a whole white wing in HMP. "They could never catch these boys and the law was not clear". Horsenanny !
Sickened 9 years, 1 month ago
You are right. These numbers criminals are just like the big drug lords and mafia bosses. They do seem to have a lot of people worshipping them though! Hilarious and sad at the very same time.
JohnDoe 9 years, 1 month ago
Where have you been! The white man and foreigners have been doing much worse to us for over a century. Wake up my friend.
padeco 9 years, 1 month ago
This show that most Bahamians around here running their mouths don't know our history, Those fellows who were there before the black people got there did us much worst.
newcitizen 9 years, 1 month ago
What a racist statement.
JohnDoe 9 years ago
Well, who the cap fits let them wear it! For me it is more an economic statement than a racial one. It, I assume you would say, is only coincidental that the greatest shakedown of our people, our economy and our country over the past century has been these foreign owned branches of financial institutions operating here, aided by our politicians, that are happy to provide financing for your gold chain, vacation and fancy car but little else. Who have very little real assets here compared to their profits earned from our sweat and who promptly repatriate those profits back to their home country providing little to no sustained economic development of our local economy or incentive to local entrepreneurs. It is a bothersome trade-off and we deserve and must negotiate more from it.
Yet we Bahamians put on our gold chains, jump in our fancy cars and walk around with that condescending smirk on our faces, using our energy to judge and belittle as we fiddle and watch as the Bahamas burn. We are at a perilous crossroads. The status-quo has obviously failed and doing and electing more of the same will yield no different results. We need a new era of economic and political consciousness and awareness that quite frankly I am beginning to fear we are not up to at least until we begin to change our existing mindset. So it is not racial. Today it may be the white man but tomorrow how things are shaping out it will most likely be the Chinese but it is really not about them it is all about us.
JohnBrown 9 years, 1 month ago
Did the $250,000 go in the front door to NEMA and out the back door? And into whose pockets?
SP 9 years, 1 month ago
.... Category 4 hurricane stationary over Southern Bahamas 36 hours & NO DEATHS?? ...
The whole world have to be totally baffled that we had no deaths or serious injuries after the onslaught of a cat4 hurricane!
WHO would have ever thought it possible!?
hurricane 9 years, 1 month ago
How ironic! They destroy countless unknown lives but then "give" those same monies to people in need but only to gain popularity. Sick.
MonkeeDoo 9 years, 1 month ago
Padeco: suggest you get the next trip back to Ghana or Congo and send us a message in a couple of months. You are so better off today because the white Europeans brought your people here. Now you are in charge and got it all mashed up. Please !!!
MonkeeDoo 9 years, 1 month ago
I heard tonight that Sebas was to give the money to HeadKnowles but PGC ordered it given to NEMA. Easier to siphon off some I guess.
ThisIsOurs 9 years, 1 month ago
Can't believe two men who are so proud of failing in school are the examples our young people have to look up to. Fail in school, run an illegal operation for a few years, use the illegal funds to prop up political campaigns, and you too can be like me.
lazybor 9 years, 1 month ago
unbelievable
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Reality_Check 9 years, 1 month ago
Hubert Minnis might as well have been shown standing and smiling too along side Sebas Bastian and Perry Christie in the photo to this article. As leader of the FNM, Minnis has not gone on public record stating that the first order of business if the FNM wins the next general election will be the full repeal of the illegal gaming laws passed by the Christie-led PLP government against the will of the Bahamian people as expressed in a duly held national referendum paid for out of the public purse. The same goes for Loretta Butler-Turner. PLP or FNM, they are all the same.....
bismark 9 years ago
this country isn't for sale,it was bought years ago,when one group of persons who made millions can influence the governing party,some of these persons were have alleged to be in other illegal activities before this racket,now thanks to the govt,they are all upstanding citizens,welcome to the Bahamas.
ThisIsOurs 9 years ago
That's the thing though, they're not considered "upstanding". No amount of money spent could ever buy them a good name. It's impossible. Yes they got entry into the upstanding citizen circle, but they dragged in the scum that's always covered them, and rather than getting clean, they've just contaminated everybody else. Lucky us.
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