The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Super Value’s president yesterday said he was hoping to avoid the perfect storm of an earlier COVID curfew and potential hurricane if tropical depression ‘six’ becomes a major threat later this week.

Rupert Roberts told Tribune Business he did not want to have to seek an extension to shopping hours to allow Bahamians to prepare for a major hurricane so soon after the government extended the curfews on New Providence and Grand Bahama by one hour to a 9pm start.

“We’re having to watch the storm very carefully,” he said. “I hope we don’t come up with a hurricane threat by this Thursday and people haven’t shopped. We might have to go back to the Competent Authority and say: ‘Can we go back to 10pm because we’re being rushed and we’re not able to enforce social distancing.

“We’re trying to head off a pandemic. We don’t want a hurricane and the pandemic. We don’t want them to combine. The competent authority [Prime Minister’s Office] has made their decision, and we hate to go back to them begging because of some unexpected incident.”

While tropical depression six is ultimately forecast to become a storm, current weather models have it failing to gain hurricane strength when it moves south of The Bahamas between Thursday and Saturday. It is presently projected not to be a major threat to this nation.

Mr Roberts, meanwhile, said Super Value will now close one hour earlier at 7pm in response to the earlier curfew so that staff have sufficient time to clean, stock up and get home by 9pm. He projected that the company would lose no sales despite the loss of six shopping hours per week, and added that the 13-store supermarket chain would open one hour earlier at 6pm if needed.

“If it’s going to help kill the virus, anything to oblige to help the medical people,” Mr Roberts said of the earlier curfew. “We could have expected more measures, but we couldn’t figure out how we could have more without compromising social distancing.

“Last time we had shorter hours we were really contributing to what we were trying to avoid. Now this wouldn’t be a problem. It was not surprising at all. Previously it was a 7pm curfew, and we had to close at 5pm. We’re glad it didn’t go to 7pm.”

Describing travel warnings from the likes of the US and UK as “the big danger” if The Bahamas does not get its latest COVID outbreak under control, Mr Roberts said: “We have two problems. We get sick, and then of course we don’t have money to buy medicine or don’t have money to buy food. It destroys the economy. We have to behave now. We have no choice.”

Ben Albury, Bahamas Bus and Truck’s general manager, told Tribune Business he saw “no scientific basis” for extending the New Providence curfew by one hour to a 9pm start and called for a greater enforcement crackdown on those not following the COVID-19 health protocols.

“In my opinion I would have hoped by now we would have learnt that curfews, lockdowns, things of that nature are not the answer,” he argued. “I think enforcing the protocols is very important. I drive around town every day and see they are not being enforced. We should focus on enforcing the existing protocols and making sure people live safe lives.”

Peter Goudie, the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation’s (BCCEC) labour director, said the Prime Minister was trying to balance health and saving lives with reopening the economy and preserving livelihoods.

“I think he’s being very honest with us,” he added of Dr Hubert Minnis. “In fairness he’s trying to keep the economy open, so he’s walking down two lanes in trying to protect people’s health but, on the other hand, keep the economy open. I was concerned he might shut some things down, but he said let’s be responsible, keep people employed and get vaccinated.”