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Cooper: Disney deal leaves crumbs for the small man

EXUMA & Ragged Island MP Chester Cooper.

EXUMA & Ragged Island MP Chester Cooper.

By MORGAN ADDERLEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

madderley@tribunemedia.net

EXUMA MP Chester Cooper said yesterday the country is being “chopped and sold for control” to the interests former Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling “spent his life keeping at bay”.

The latest Progressive Liberal Party member to criticise the Disney Island Development agreement for South Eleuthera, Mr Cooper said the deal only leaves locals with “crumbs”.

However, Tourism Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar defended the deal yesterday, noting the government feels it is important to “create opportunities for that community”.

Mr Cooper also called on Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis to stop political victimisation against PLP supporters “forthwith”, describing the practice as “wicked and destructive” and a “barbaric state of play (that) sets our country back 100 years”.

Mr Cooper made these remarks at a PLP South Andros branch meeting yesterday.

Mr Cooper expressed dismay as he compared Sir Lynden’s legacy to the current Minnis administration. “I thought how sad that we went from such a giant of a man who had such a heart for his own people, to a government that now only pretends to care,” Mr Cooper, pictured below, said.

“I wondered what Sir Lynden would think if he saw the nation that he loved so much being chopped up and sold for control to the interests he spent his life keeping at bay. I wonder how he would feel seeing this FNM government usher in the next era of the Bay Street Boys.

“I wondered what he would feel if he saw how this FNM government would so carelessly disregard so many of our own countrymen who are hurting and in need all in the name of impressing and doing the bidding of international agencies.

“I also lamented that the FNM can’t even dream of having leaders like Sir Lynden anymore. People who stand up for their country, not tear it down and call their countrymen corrupt on the world stage.”

He went onto address the Disney deal, hitting out at the government for giving a 50-year seabed lease in Eleuthera “to a cruise line for peanuts, and still give them Crown land and all the tax exemptions in the book.”

He added: “We get just over 100 jobs and no business opportunities, no shops, no restaurants. Watersports that is reserved for Bahamians given away to the cruise lines.

“Only crumbs left for the small man, the self-employed and the budding entrepreneurs.”

Mr Cooper’s remarks echoed that of fellow PLP and Englerston MP Glenys Hanna Martin, who on Monday said the Minnis administration negotiated miserably on behalf of Bahamians, producing a “shameful” deal.

Yesterday, Mr D’Aguilar was asked to respond to the PLP’s ongoing criticism of the Disney deal.

“I disagree, of course,” he told The Tribune. “Mrs Glenys Hanna Martin obviously has a point of view. We think that it was a good deal. South Eleuthera, of course for many years has been impoverished and we feel that it is important to create opportunities for that community. I mean what was amazing is the people in South Eleuthera were seemingly very supportive of it.

“And so…as I say, it’s important to get spades in the ground to get the deal done. Mrs Hanna Martin is probably someone who negotiates and takes a long time to make a deal. We feel that it’s important to make the deal, let’s get the boots on the ground, the spades in the ground, and people employed and people enjoying empowering people and creating employment for our people. So we think it’s a good deal,” the tourism minister said.

Comments

jujutreeclub 5 years, 9 months ago

“I wondered what Sir Lynden would think and “I wondered what he felt. "

  1. When he paved the road in Long Island only as far as the PLP constituency began and ended.
  2. When he built a packing house in ONeals in Long Island where no farmers worked the fields.The farmers lived and worked in the south and had to drive over about 60 miles of bad road to get to the packing house. The produce then had to be loaded on a vehicle and driven back over the bad road to get to the mailboat in Clarence Town.
  3. When he refused to put water and electricity in Long Island
  4. When he had Batelco built in ONeals just not to have the building in Deadman's Cay upgraded. I thought how sad that we went from such a giant of a man who had such a heart for his own people
  5. When the poor people in Andros was using their pension monies to pay his mortgage
  6. When the constituency he represented for his entire political career was in such a state of disrepair
  7. When my dad was fired because of his political affiliation
  8. When Dr. Bain drove through the security booth at his mansion
  9. When people were not hired because they did not get a letter from their MP
  10. When he made the statement about Carlton Francis in the house of Assembly that all he saw was a clothes hanger walking
  11. When he refused to pave the road in front of a FNM supporter in Exuma
  12. When he authorized the former PM to fire the manager of NIB in one of the southern islands Tell me Oh tell me Chester. , I wonder how he felt and what he was thinking.

Clamshell 5 years, 9 months ago

Or when he nationalized the thriving Levy poultry operation on Eleuthera and drove it into ruin.

Clamshell 5 years, 9 months ago

If he felt this way, why didn’t he lead a drive for the government to buy the property and preserve it as a national park? Complaining is easy and talk is cheap — as are most of these politicians.

birdiestrachan 5 years, 9 months ago

No doubt Mr: Pindling made mistakes. But the good he did outweighs the bad, He was an intelligent man. during his time there was free High school education and the collage of the Bahamas, the middle class Bahamians became a reality.

The Disney deal is a bad deal No property tax for at least 20 years. the rental of the sea bed. They sold the Bahamas out for a cold bowl of porridge.

Now they say a cruise company will develop the Freeport Harbor. The Freeport

harbor belongs to Hutchison. .

OldFort2012 5 years, 8 months ago

If you really think that, you must be partaking in what he took a percentage on in transporting.

Basically, he was a drug dealer. If you want to put it in plain English that everyone can understand.

mandela 5 years, 9 months ago

5000 children will be leaving schools this year as the years before them, hundreds of millions of $$ and only 150 employed here, 5 billion there and only 200 employed at this rate the Bahamas will be gone to others by the time we get jobs for the next 30,000 children looking for jobs entering the job market by 2022

DDK 5 years, 8 months ago

This catastrophic Disney deal DOES bite, but the only thing it has in common with with "Sir" Lynden's legacy is that it is shady and underhanded.

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