The Tribune

Malcolm J Strachan calls for a public hearing on the government’s dealing with Chinese interests . . .

This is a time of difficulty and uncertainty for our nation.

The difficulty relates to our impaired economy, high unemployment, rising crime rate, and what is a growing loss of confidence by Bahamians in Prime Minister Perry Christie’s government.

When we think about the future, this loss of confidence is troubling - how will it affect our quality of life, job and educational opportunities. We have seen how it has impacted an attempt at gender equality. So when our government does little to address this uncertainty, whose interests is our government really serving?

We today are a nation where major projects - such as Baha Mar and The Pointe - that could mean much for the social and economic welfare of this country are mired in controversy.

We do not understand why our Government has been both so solicitous of and defensive about China’s ever increasing presence in our capital, up and down Bay Street. Many of us question why the government continually has allowed Chinese private enterprise to usurp jobs for which the first call should be to qualified Bahamians rather than imported Chinese workers.

Many of us question why our government is more than willing to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to send its officials on trip after trip to Beijing, only to return home to mouth to us false hopes which seem then to be followed by more twisting and turning to further Chinese economic and business interests.

Who is benefitting from this dance of our Prime Minister and his government with the Chinese? For sure, the main beneficiary is the Chinese private enterprise here in the Bahamas. They appear to have our Prime Minister and his government lying down in the same economic bed with them. As for the people of The Bahamas, we have been left out in the proverbial cold.

Our government recently has been touting its excitement that, based on its relationship with China’s political leadership, its banks, including China Exim Bank, and enterprises such as China State Construction (CCA), China wants to make our country a major trading hub for Chinese currency. What would this mean for our country’s critical relationships with western nations like the United States, which has the most stable currency in the world and on which our own currency is based?

Indeed, headlines have been screaming for well over a year about international concerns over the Chinese yuan and that currency’s weakness. Headlines also have been highlighting corruption, both political and business, that has been permeating China, including concerns about how many Chinese business executives once abroad flout violations of legal business practices.

We know of such Chinese misconduct firsthand with recent court documents revealing sleazy business practices by CCA executives on the Baha Mar project, and our own media raising concerns about CCA’s behaviour at The Pointe.

We as a people owe a debt of gratitude to radio host Steve McKinney for exposing the outrageous demands that CCA has made for the restart of construction at Baha Mar. These demands included, among other giveaways by our government, 30-years tax exemption and the conveying of 500 Bahamian citizenships to Chinese citizens!

Moreover, it is well known and publicised that some relatives of members of our government hold jobs with CCA while others have benefitted financially from the Chinese’s expanding business. This while thousands upon thousands of Bahamians go without work.

The Government’s siding with China Exim Bank and China State Construction to sabotage Baha Mar’s Chapter 11 reorganisation and to instead instigate a winding up/liquidation of this project has put one this country’s greatest potential business developments now completely in the ownership hands of a Chinese bank; left hundreds of unsecured creditors, mostly Bahamians, unpaid; and caused international rating agencies to become even more pessimistic about our country’s ability to attract meaningful foreign investment.

It is sad that our government may very well have lost the confidence and respect of its people. We are at a point that we now need to know what is the true extent and nature of Prime Minister Christie and his government’s dealings with China. Has our own government and the Progressive Liberal Party engaged with the Chinese in a way that it too has become tainted by the corruption that is plaguing China’s own institutions? Is the Christie administration acting in the best interests of the people of The Bahamas, or is it reaping ill begotten financial gains by “selling” our nation to China as an “economic colony” of that foreign power?

Our Government seems to have misled, double talked and failed to deliver on any number of situations and issues involving their new ‘strategic partners’. There is no true transparency by the Government on what it is doing with China and what this will really mean to The Bahamas. We urge all our legislators, no matter their political party, to hold The Prime Minister and his government accountable. We are a nation with its general election now less than a year away and with a Prime Minister and government whose moral authority to govern is now being questioned.

Last week, Dr Andre Rollins rose to his feet in Parliament and accused the Government of collusion with the Chinese. Prime Minister Christie vehemently denied this. But then again, this is the same Prime Minister who Rollins described as the “dream seller” in chief. We have all had our fill of empty and broken promises from the Prime Minister. We, and the public, have lost faith in him.

We believe that Rollins was right when he said, “Tiger Wu (China State Construction’s executive vice president) is wooing this government”. We can not trust the Prime Minister, or his Government’s word that something is afoot. We have every right to ask the question and find out what the true relationship is between the Chinese and our Government.

Barring a Commission of Enquiry, we urge the Parliament to call for a Select Committee to investigate the exact nature of this Christie administration’s relationships with these Chinese interests. The Bahamian public has a right to know.

Are the best interests of the Bahamian people being served, or are the self- interests of a select few this administration’s priority?

One thing is for sure: the national sovereignty of The Bahamas cannot be for sale.

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