The Tribune

Surprise, surprise. After 20 months of waiting the Government has announced a Chinese carve up of the stalled Cable Beach mega resort, Malcolm J Strachan says . . .

You know the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) is living in “La La Land” when they can get up in a press conference and announce that they have made a deal on Baha Mar, expect to provide no details and take no questions from the media.

A multi-billion-dollar deal is signed by our Government, on our behalf, and we are left to “trust” that one of the most corrupt, incompetent administrations in the history of this country has represented our interests successfully.

Yeah right!

We all know this Government is as crooked as a Virginia fence, so why in the world would we believe a word they say?

By all accounts, the PLP should no longer even be in office if they had any moral grounding. They presided over not one, but two failed referendums, and instead of doing the honourable thing and resigning, they remained to torture the Bahamian people with one cock-up after the next.

But this is nothing new for the PLP. The PLP has become synonymous with corruption over the years. From the Commission of Inquiry era, when the old drug running Sir Lynden Pindling could not explain away how he had spent eight times his salary in one year, or the laughable excuse of his brand new Rolls Royce being a “gift” from his impoverished constituents/supporters, we are here yet again with a party that is taking us for fools.

We have to give it to good ole’ Ping though: he did have a good thing going there for a while, and boy don’t we just love to still pay homage to that embarrassment.

Anyway, if there ever was an issue that should get the Bahamian people up in arms, it is Baha Mar - and thankfully this time, the wool cannot be pulled over the eyes of the people.

One thing we can give credit to Pindling for however, is the fact that he at least attempted to hide his wrongdoing from public view. This PLP of today creates a mess, and then goes out of their way to seek praise as they make that mess even worse!

Our former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham described this comedic reality best in a rally speech a few years ago. Here’s how he described it.

“If you want someone to deliver a bottle of water, who will you trust to get the job done? Hubert Ingraham and the FNM will get the job done, we’ll get it done on time, and you’ll get every drop of your water.

But if you ask Mr Christie and his PLP, watch out!

The first thing he’ll do is make three or four passionate speeches about how water is good for you. He’ll list all the wonderful things water can be used for. Then he’ll appoint a committee to study the best strategy to get the water to you.

In the meantime, he’ll sell off some of your water at a low price. And when you complain about it he’ll buy back some of it at a higher price than he sold it for. By the time you get your bottle, you’ll be very thirsty and most of the water will be gone. But Mr Christie will deny that any water is missing.

When you insist, he’ll promise to hold an investigation to see if the water is really missing and how it came to be missing.But don’t hold your breath. You’ll never get the results of that investigation. And when you point all this out to him he’ll simply promise you that next time he’ll give you two bottles of water!”

Very funny right? Now we went through all of that to ask you one simple question: do you believe that the Perry Christie from those years ago has changed?

Where is our BTC deal on the two per cent that he claimed has been retained by this Government?

Where is the investigation into the fire at BAMSI and the wastage of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money in Andros?

Where is the much-promised audited report on the cost of not only the first, but the second Junkanoo Carnival?

Where is the investigation and report on the ‘LOI’?

Where is the investigation and report on the theft of millions of dollars from the Road Traffic Department?

Where is the investigation and follow-up on the Rubis oil leak?

Where is the report on the unlawful detention of the Cuban nationals?

Do you see the trend? And that is not an exhaustive list! But we say all that to say this, how can we, the Bahamian people, trust this Government with anything, let alone a deal that could have ramifications for the future direction and independence of this nation?

They have got to be kidding themselves!

So let us see what they are really doing here on Baha Mar.

You had a private commercial undertaking by the property’s developer, Sarkis Izmirlian, to enter into Chapter bankruptcy 11 protection in June 2015 after the project’s general contractor, China Construction America (CCA), had failed to meet two of its own self-imposed deadlines.

The government inserted themselves into the court proceedings claiming “national sovereignty” and blocked it. After a protracted battle the only winners were the Chinese (surprise, surprise).

One truly wonders how “friendly” our new conquerors truly are with this Government. Well we don’t really have to guess do we? It’s plain to see, they whistle and this Government jumps.

So what have we as a country waited 20 months to hear?

The Export Import Bank of China (CEXIM) will fund the completion of the resort utilising CCA.

Was anyone really surprised by this? No one could reasonably expect that two Chinese Government-owned and controlled entities would actually operate without the next, so there’s no victory there for the Government by agreeing to what the Chinese wanted all along.

Bahamian contractors will “reportedly” be paid some of the monies owed to them. How is this a victory for the Government? The Chapter 11 proposal by Sarkis Izmirlian assured that they would be paid in full, along with all the other unsecured creditors - i.e. former workers, vendors, etc. So to claim a “partial payment”, if anything at all, as a victory is disingenuous at best.

And then there are the flood of “concessions” that we have yet to hear about that have “facilitated” this deal. Rumours swirl of islands being offered and economic citizenship being granted. For its part the Government attempts to explain away, but as we have seen from their past, the truth is not in them, so we do not trust them.

Their little PR stunt to misdirect attention from our recent Moody’s downgrade has exploded in their face, and left more shrapnel than they had bargained for.

One thing that we are thankful for is that the Free National Movement (FNM) has laid down the gauntlet on this disgrace of an agreement. FNM leader Dr Hubert Minnis and others within his party have made it clear that their party holds the right to revoke any deal this Government has entered into. Bravo for them!

The Chinese must see that the Bahamian people are not as stupid as the PLP makes us out to be. No promise of election financing, or under the table dealings will go this time around.

The Bahamian people deserve more than this PLP government has given them. And any new purchaser must know that no deal, done in the dead of night, will stand.

We say again, buyer beware!

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