The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Democratic National Alliance’s (DNA) leader yesterday said Prime Minister Perry Christie was allowing his government “to run amok” if he had no knowledge of the $2.1 billion Chinese farming/fisheries proposal.

Branville McCartney told Tribune Business he could not believe that Mr Christie was unaware of the proposal being floated and discussed by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Bahamas’ ambassador to China given the amount of Crown Land involved.

Pointing out that the Prime Minister was responsible for Crown Land, and its grant and leasing, Mr McCartney suggested it was inconceivable that V Alfred Gray and/or Paul ‘Andy’ Gomez had not first discussed the proposal with Mr Christie.

“He needs to step down if he doesn’t know what’s going on in his government,” the DNA leader told Tribune Business. “These guys are running amok around him.

“The Prime Minister must have known. Land is in his portfolio. He signs off on that. When they came up with this 20,000 acres of Crown Land, they must have discussed it with the Prime Minister.

“No minister thinking of doing this type of deal with a foreign entity would do it without discussing it with the Prime Minister and Cabinet of this country. They can’t take the Bahamian people for fools every time.”

The Government was plunged into controversy after Mr Gray confirmed he had given the ‘go ahead’ for Mr Gomez to seek $2.1 billion in capital investments from a Chinese state-owned development fund.

The proposal was for a 100 company joint agriculture/fisheries venture owned 50/50 by the Chinese and Bahamians, involving 10,000 acres of Crown Land on Andros. That acreage was to expand to 20,000 if certain performance benchmarks were met.

The revelations triggered a major public backlash, centred on fears that the Bahamas is selling its economic sovereignty to Beijing, and in the process giving a foreign government significant leverage and influence over its internal affairs.

Suspicion and mistrust over Chinese investments and economic intentions towards this nation were sparked by the Baha Mar impasse, with the Christie administration’s handling of the matter exacerbating concerns.

These have focused on the fact that Chinese investments in the Bahamas are being made largely by state-owned companies or private sector conglomerates with close ties to Beijing, raising fears that a communist country with an incompatible political system is gaining control over too many of this nation’s key economic assets.

“Because of the country’s response, the Prime Minister came out and said Andros is in his hands,” Mr McCartney told Tribune Business.

“If Andros is in the Prime Minister’s hands, we should be very, very afraid. The country has been in the Prime Minister’s hands for four years, and look where we are - crime ridden, people losing their jobs, VAT, the lack of accountability and transparency, and Baha Mar has not worked.

“The Government is going to try and do everything in the next six months to get some type of injection into the economy and win the election. The Bahamian people will see past that. They have been complete and utter failures.”