The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The organiser of an online petition that has obtained almost 4,000 signatures against the $2.1 billion Chinese agriculture/fisheries proposal yesterday expressed confidence the Christie administration has “bitten off more than it can chew”.

Sam Duncombe, head of environmental group, reEarth, told Tribune Business that the proposal crafted by Paul ‘Andy’ Gomez, the Bahamas’ ambassador to China, was “absolute insanity”.

She argued that had it little regard for the potential consequences of giving 10,000 acres of Crown Land, and fishing rights in Bahamian waters, to a “voracious nation” which was already struggling to feed its 2 billion-strong population.

Warning that the ambassador’s proposal threatened to expose the Bahamas’ already-depleted, and “under pressure”, fisheries stocks to even more harm, Mrs Duncombe also queried the identities of the Bahamians who would hold a 50 per cent equity stake in each of the 100 ‘joint venture’ companies with the Chinese.

“I am hoping that the Government has bitten off more than it can chew,” Mrs Duncombe told Tribune Business. “The one thing I am very heartened about is that the one area where we stand together is protection of our fisheries.

“We’re just selling every natural resource out for cash. Everything is for cash. We cannot replace these resources once they’re gone.”

Mr Gomez’s proposal, for which he received permission from V Alfred Gray, minister of agriculture and fisheries, to initiate discussions on, is seeking to access $2.1 billion in financing from a $35 billion Chinese grant fund.

These monies would be injected into the 100 Bahamian/Chinese joint venture companies, which would collectively lease 10,000 Crown Land acres on Andros - with a further 10,000 to follow should key performance benchmarks be hit.

The Bahamian shareholders in these companies, who could either be individuals or corporations, would then contribute capital of $25,000 each, with the companies then supposedly listed on the Bahamas International Securities Exchange (BISX).

The proposal also acknowledges that fisheries would be key to generating initial cash flow and profits for these companies, as the ‘pay back’ period for agricultural investments is relatively long, even though the sector is supposedly reserved for Bahamians only.

Mrs Duncombe, and her online petition website, suggested that the Bahamian ‘investors’ were likely to be friends, family and political supporters of the governing party.

Suggesting it would be “50 per cent government cronies” and 50 per cent Chinese, she concluded that it would result in Bahamians being “100 per cent screwed”.

“We all know how the ‘100 Bahamian businesses’ are going to work,” Mrs Duncombe said, “and as a country that has zero food security, the notion that the Government could open up our fisheries and farming to a country as voracious as China is down right unconscionable.”

“How many Bahamians have got $25,000 to invest,” Mrs Duncombe told Tribune Business. “It’s going to go to the same hopeful schmoozers of the elite.

“They [the Government] say they reached out to stakeholders on this. No, they haven’t. Who heard about this till now? It’s absolute insanity. It’s a ridiculous proposal, not given any thought, as it was shown to a handful of people without any regard to the consequences.”

While the likes of the Bahamas National Trust (BNT) confirmed that Mr Gomez had ‘floated’ the proposal to them informally, this had occurred on the sidelines of another event, and there had been no in-depth discussions. The BNT added that it had indicated it could not support such a plan.

“The resources are under major pressure, and to open up any species without safeguards in place to prevent exploitation is insanity” Mrs Duncombe said.

“To say they’ve [the Chinese] driven me insane is probably an understatement. The reality is they don’t care about us. They say they care about all Bahamians, and are doing the best for the Bahamian people, but I cannot see how they’re going to help Bahamians.”

Mrs Duncombe also hit at the amount of Andros-based Crown Land that the proposal contemplated leasing to the joint venture companies, recalling a recent conversation with someone who had been waiting five years to hear about the fate of their Crown Land application.

“How is that possible when Crown Land is being given away to foreigners left, right and centre?” she asked.

The Government, through Mr Gray and others, has repeatedly stated that Mr Gomez’s proposal is just that - a proposal - and nothing has been submitted to the Government for approval. They have also emphasised that certain details, such as the Crown Land leasing, will never be approved.

This has done little to calm the increasing public furore, which has resulted from growing mistrust of the Government and the Chinese as a result of the situation at Baha Mar, and suspicions the two sides have ‘cut a deal’ behind the scenes with respect to the property’s completion and opening.

Many view Mr Gomez’s proposal, which is ambitious to put it mildly, as another indication that China has received other benefits from the Christie administration, and that Beijing is becoming too powerful and amassing too much influence over this nation.

The Government’s defenders, such as PLP chairman Bradley Roberts, are arguing that its opponents are deliberately stoking xenophobia, and ignoring the fact that China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are currently the only investment sources for a capital-starved Bahamas.

Yet Mrs Duncombe told Tribune Business: “When they built the stadium, did we think it was coming for free? A lot of us did, and it now looks like they’re coming to collect on that and God knows what else.

“China is looking out for its own nation, but I don’t see the Bahamian government doing too much to look out for food security and how that’s going to work for us.”

One respondent to Mrs Duncombe’s petition, Mark K, said: “As a permanent resident living in the Bahamas for 25 plus years, actively involved in environmental issues, this is a scary prospect.

“The Chinese factory ships will make the Dominicans, and local poachers alike, look like fair weather amateurs . They will leave barren sea beds, and fish out pelagic stocks. Think they would travel half way around the world, at great expense, if they had any fish left in their own waters?”

Another, Manex N, added: “I have been trying to get into commercial fishing for two years now, and my government has not helped no matter how much I ask. We Bahamians need to be able to survive as well. This is wrong.”