The Tribune

By ADRIAN GIBSON

ajbahama@hotmail.com

In yet another filibusterous performance in the House of Assembly yesterday, Prime Minister Perry Christie opened the 2016/2017 budget debate with a prevaricating talkathon that, generally, lacked substance or radical reforms.

Beyond the lack of substance, the four-hour communication - that began an hour late - was so unimpressive and visionless that it could demonstrably be seen as the sure fire cure for insomnia.

Mr Christie’s statements launched the Progressive Liberal Party’s 2017 general election campaign, prefacing the presentation of a budget that likely features a number of politically convenient carrots that will be dangled at the right time.

We are in an election year and the utterances of members of Mr Christie’s caucus were demonstrative of their keen awareness of that. When you hear grown men and women shouting from their seats to the Opposition, with comments such as “y’all take dat!” and “ya thought you’ll had us aye” (or some variation of the same), then there is no wonder why youngsters observing such scenes sometimes behave in a disorderly manner. This is all demonstrative of the moronic political charades that lie ahead.

During yesterday’s communication, Mr Christie read and tabled a vacuous statement, announcing with much hyperbole that the Export Import Bank of China (EXIM) and China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) have entered into a “framework agreement” to complete the stalled Baha Mar resort “as expeditiously as possible”. He said the agreement was brokered following two days of “successful meetings” between Bahamian government officials, the EXIM Bank and CSCEC, which is the parent company of the resort’s general contractor China Construction America (CCA) Bahamas. According to Mr Christie, he was reading from a joint statement by the EXIM Bank and CSCEC.

Exactly what is a framework agreement? Can I see a copy of one please, a precedent if you will?

According to that statement, “the arrangement provides for a framework for putting in place the financing required for completion of the project and for CSCEC’s indirect subsidiary, CCA Bahamas, to re-mobilise and restart construction to finish the project as expeditiously as possible.”

So, CCA Bahamas, which also owns The Pointe on downtown Bay Street, will once again be allowed to build the resort when, according to the developer, “there is nothing in CCA’s past performance at Baha Mar that should lend confidence that they can complete Baha Mar on any schedule they provide and refrain from re-engaging in deceitful business practices, including overbilling and substituting inferior materials and systems to the detriment of the potential of this resort.”

Who will independently test and supervise CCA? Surely not the Ministry of Works, right?

The fact that developer Sarkis Izmirlian was not even mentioned means that he has been put out to pasture and given the cold shoulder. Clearly, Mr Izmirlian has been shafted with a dirty political cutlass and thrown out of the boat without a life vest. It appears that both the government and the EXIM bank have colluded and decided that they will have nothing to do with him.

The PM also said that talks were underway between CCA Bahamas and the resort’s court-appointed receivers to agree to appropriate terms for construction to recommence and to prepare a construction agreement to provide the timeline for the project’s completion.

What’s more, whilst the statement claimed that the EXIM bank and CSCEC will re-mobilise at some point (when? Only they know!), they - like the bigger bosses that they have become - said that they will consider the requirements (ie payments, etc) of Bahamian creditors. They gave no firm commitment to anything, just fancy words about what they will consider or propose to do.

I guess the PM’s view is that help and hope is on the way, but one ought not ask him how and when because, it appears, he doesn’t know.

Prime Minister Christie ought to have been ashamed to read a statement in the House that makes no mention of firm timelines or financing or a possible buyer or who will manage and operate the resort if and when it opens or the hotel brands that will now be involved or what happened to the original hotel brands that were involved or what further concessions were given to the Chinese or how many people would be rehired and when or if they had entirely dismissed Izmirlian. Whilst the devil may be in the details, we got none. Sir, the public is more confused today than we were on Tuesday.

And, why was CCA brought back in when the developers have already complained of their incessant delays and there were concerns about shoddy construction work? What value would their further participation in the construction process be and how does that engender the confidence of prospective buyers?

This week, we heard reports of demands by CCA whereby they purportedly wrote to the government requesting that the resort’s current developer Sarkis Izmirlian not be involved with the project, demanding a 30-year exclusivity with regards to its casino licence, a 30-year Value Added Tax exemption, a 25 per cent increase in concessions currently enjoyed by the resort, and the granting of 500 citizenships to Chinese nationals attached to the project in various capacities.

The nation was livid. Upon hearing of this, I wondered if a Chinese government entity would ever write to the State Department of the United States and make such unreasonable, far-fetched and crazed requests. Surely, they would be tossed out on their backsides.

Alas, this is tantamount to a Chinese test where they see how far they could push the government.

Mr Christie, on Monday night, described it as an “absolute lie” that citizenship in return for foreign investment had been agreed, saying that was a “non-negotiable position” for his government.

Mr Christie has never addressed the other aspects of the purported letter, nor has he confirmed or denied that such a letter was not received by him. We need to ensure that he answers that very important question.

Here we have a situation where Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson and senior policy advisor Sir Baltron Bethel flew first-class to China but the most they could come up with is a non-committing joint statement. Is there a direct correlation between the Attorney General’s current trip and ongoing CCA negotiations?

What kind of skulduggery is afoot and why haven’t we been informed of the details surrounding these secret negotiations?

I think I’m going to learn Mandarin. At the rate that we’re being outmanoeuvred and out-negotiated by the Chinese, at the rate that our country is being sold, I will need to know it to survive in the new Bahamas (China-hamas).

Mr Christie also borrowed some of the Attorney General’s talking points, proclaiming that swift justice has been a success. Look around you Sir, have you no shame! Swift justice is an abject failure. Swift justice should not be about convictions or winning cases for political mileage or issuing nolle prosequis to reduce the backlog.

This is possibly the last budget of Mr Christie’s career. It was painfully short on vision, creativity and progressive thought. It was a painfully disappointing communication. It was like watching toenails grow. It was tedious, slow and boring.

I hoped that the PM would have put deep consideration into the generation of this budget so that he can one day claim to have significantly altered the Bahamas. There was no evidence of that. Nothing that made you go “wow”. Just a load of fluff and self praise.

Sir, you said that “BAMSI will continue to transform the agricultural sector”. How can BAMSI continue something it hasn’t yet started? Are we going to hear the same false praise for National Health Insurance as well? Clearly, there is an imaginary world out there somewhere.

Interestingly, Mr Christie’s signature project is a re-working of former PM Hubert Ingraham’s 52-week job programme. I recall the governing party roundly criticising the former government about that programme and yet now here they are. The government’s new apprenticeship/job programme is meant to falsely reduce the employment rate. They are selling false hope. This is meant to swing the electorate and win the election. No doubt, friends, family and lovers will be the first to benefit.

The freebooters are coming out!

Mr Christie also promised to relaunch his mortgage relief plan. The mechanics of such a relaunch I will await the details of, but this time around I hope that more than five people could be assisted. Mr Christie has again proffered the same reasoning for the relaunch as he did when they launched mortgage relief 1.0 and so we shall how many delinquent borrowers will qualify for the new programme, how effective the government’s fiscal responsibility programme relative to the applicants will be and if applicants will indeed see large reductions in monthly payments. I would also like to know whether the task force that will be established to administer the programme will be a statutory body?

I smell another election time ploy.

In his communication, the PM failed to properly address crime.

He did not satisfactorily address the issues that are important to Bahamians - crime, the economy and jobs. He did not satisfy the hundreds of thousands of Bahamians who are gasping for air.

The speech reminds me of a pitcher in the late innings of a baseball game. We are left feeling that we should have pulled him out at the end of the game and gone with the relief pitcher.

The PM did not address our concerns about Bahamian sovereignty, what it is to be Bahamian and the requirements to become one (and hopefully it’s not just building a hotel on Cable Beach). Given the mess we see with Baha Mar, the Bahamian public should now expect that many of the other contracts and agreements made between this government and foreign entities may need to be renegotiated in our best interest. Unfortunately, that does not send the ideal message to future investors but it is the reality of what we are faced with. CCA is as complicit in the Baha Mar disaster as the government.

The Chinese are doing what colonising powers do best. At present, their hands are wrapped around our national balls and they are squeezing ... hard. They can see the desperation of our political leaders; they know that they are only looking for a meal and a few service jobs. They know that some of our leaders will sell our birthright on the altar of re-election.

They know that there are some who lead us who think that we’re fools, that we are - in the words of Rodney Moncur - “picky teeth Montobies!”

Mr Christie also announced that the government plans to own a majority stake in the new mobile carrier, ie Cable Bahamas. Why is the government dabbling in the private sector? When will we ever see true competition in this country? Why does the government need to own shares in BTC and Cable Bahamas’ mobile carrier? What the heck is this?

What about the details of National Health Insurance Mr Christie? You have still not said anything of substance.

I admit that I was pleased to see that the government is developing a master plan for the development of Andros. Andros is a beautiful, vast space that should become an economic hub and, perhaps, either our economic or political capital one day.

Moreover, I commend Greg Moss for his Homeowners Protection Bill. He is the only MP who proposed such an independent member’s bill. I am thrilled that the government has decided to adopt such a noble bill and incorporate Mr Moss into the drafting and revising of his original bill.

Mr Christie also announced that the government will borrow $99.6 million to cover the disparity between revenue and expenditure. I will follow up on this in a later column.

I encourage Auditor General Terrence Bastian to keenly review all of these programmes by the end of the year. I expect to see much wastage, some “tiefin” and lots of political exploitation.

Comments and responses to ajbahama@hotmail.com