The Straw Market on Bay Street.
By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune Senior Reporter
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
DEPUTY Prime Minister and Minister of Works Desmond Bannister said the board of the Straw Market Authority has paid off nearly $500k in debt owed to the National Insurance Board, Bahamas Power and Light and the Water and Sewerage Corporation.
Mr Bannister, whose comments came during his contribution to the budget debate in the House of Assembly yesterday, said the board of the SMA encountered the debt when it took office in 2017. He suggested the former Christie administration allowed the debt to accrue.
“From April 2015 to December 2017, the Straw Market Authority failed to make any of its required National Insurance contributions,” he said, adding that the estimated legacy debt to NIB as of March 19, 2019 was $184,065 in outstanding contributions, including $15,737.25 in interest.
“All I’m going to say to you is that debt has now been paid in full by this board,” he said.
Mr Bannister also said when the board was appointed in September 2017 the SMA owed BPL $139,463.67.
“That bill to BPL has now been retired in full,” he said. “Unlike members opposite, this FNM government does not merely talk about fiscal responsibility in governance, we act.”
He said in September 2017 the board also encountered $58,518.71 owed to the Water and Sewerage Corporation which has since “been retired in full.”
He said the board found $112,319.35 in telecommunication bills when it took over, including $45,935.63 associated with board members’ cell phone use plus $66,383.72 in landline charges.
“The Straw Market Authority has now paid that bill in full and has cancelled cell phones,” he said.
He added: “The Straw Market Authority has had no revenue since the close of the markets due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The budget expenses for 2020 were $1,280,185.60. The actual expenses were $957,698, a decrease of 25 percent. The net loss of (the) authority was $777,147.98. I’m not supposed to say this, Mr Speaker, but for the first time now, the Straw Market Authority actually has money in the bank.”
Comments
Sickened 3 years, 6 months ago
So... the Straw Market Authority 1) always had this money sitting in the account and chose not to pay any bills until now??? Or, 2) did the straw market authority recently come into a windfall (playing numbers?). Or, 3) were the debts written off?
I say 3 because we know that many straw vendors never paid their pittance of a fee because they stink like that.
tribanon 3 years, 6 months ago
Here we Bannister's small incompetent mind focused on piddly straw market debt rather than the mega millions of dollars of debt owed by financially crippled BPL/BEC and the all but bankrupt Water & Sewerage Corp. Go figure!
ThisIsOurs 3 years, 6 months ago
After Bannister spoke of the "beautuful" colours we were going to see on the straw market, I waited to see if there was something else they were going to do with those hideous pastel colours. After months of waiting nothing... this IS the "beautiful" display he spoke of! It tells you how completely visionless we are. If you had time and money to paint the straw market area, why not make it a work of art? An attraction all by itself? How you say? #vision. Make it a junkanoo piece. too late and it wasnt your idea. and anyway after someone had the bright idea to let a foreign company open a junkanoo museum.. and place it at the steps of the cruise ship....well what can you expect
BONEFISH 3 years, 6 months ago
A junkanoo museum is not an original idea. Dr.David Sands attempted to operate a junkanoo museum in the eighties. It was located on Prison Lane .It closed down.
There was talk of developing a junkanoo museum where the old customs building was located. This was in the nineties when Algernon Allen was Minister of Youth and Sports. There are museums in the down town areas of many cities worldwide,
ThisIsOurs 3 years, 6 months ago
but the location of this museum is not "downtown". It is located in the exclusive enclave of a private developer. A downtown location forcing tourists to walk into town would have been ok a location out cable beach better or a location in the inner city even better than that. It could have become something like a magnet, a business around which other businesses could flourish.
But we have no vision. Thd white rich man tells us what they want to do and we move heaven and earth to see it gets done no matter the impact on us, whether that impact is zero economic effect for vast concessions or transfer of national assets with no visible long term equitable benefit or environmental harm.
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