The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I was extremely upset to see a recent notice in the newspapers pertaining to the Quieting of hundreds of acres of land on one of our Family Islands by a company (not an individual) in the United States! What is going on in this country when laws are passed to disenfranchise law-abiding Bahamians of their patrimony? Can this be considered a form of gentrification? How long will it be allowed to continue? Will we remain quiet until we become foreigners in our own land?

This madness has got to stop! It is time to raise our voices and demand that the Immovable Properties Act be imposed once again in order to stop this carnage!

Bahamians, we have to learn to make decisions today, not with the ridiculously shortsighted five-year cycle of elections in mind, but with laser focus on the benefits that will accrue to our future generations – our grandchildren and their children’s children!

Whilst some laws are repealed and replaced, there are others which have no right to still be on the books. But who is checking? The Quieting Titles Act in itself is questionable if it allows any Tom, Dick, or Harry to lay claim to our valuable land! We continue to function like the pirates we once were! It is like we have all slid down the Rabbit Hole into Wonderland where everything is topsy-turvy and wrong is right and right is wrong!

The Immovable Property Act (1981) was passed in our young independent nation by the Pindling government to deter foreigners from owning property ‘free and clear’ in our archipelago. If they wished to invest, they were required to lease land for a goodly number of years, so that if they decided to just pack up and leave (which is sadly an all-too-familiar scenario) at least the country did not lose ownership of its land assets, and the saying “God bless the child who’s got his own” had the potential to apply to the average Bahamian during that time.

The Immovable Property Act was overturned in 1993 and replaced by The International Persons Landholding Act, local realtors and lawyers being the main agitators for the change, claiming that their businesses were suffering due to sluggish sales.

No doubt this letter will not be welcomed by these two professional entities, but it is time to stop and think critically about our country’s future and imagine where these unchecked sales or Quieted Titles will lead us in the next five, ten, twenty years into the future.

How many islands, how many millions of acres of land (some of which is even Crown Land – that, on principle, foreigners absolutely should not be allowed to own), how many beachfronts, and how many other prime properties have been sold off to foreigners since that time? In fact, a realty company was bragging over social media the other day about their huge multi-million dollar property sale!

The realtors’ huge commission funds go happily into their fat bank accounts, and the coffers of select legal firms continue to expand … but what benefits do we, the people, gain in the long run if our valuable patrimony continues to be sold off, piece by greedy growing piece?

In fact today, the ordinary Bahamian, whether single or family-sized, has difficulty even finding apartments to rent because many of those former rental accommodations have been turned into Airbnbs instead, catering mainly to foreign visitors to our shores. It would be interesting to know what percentage of the funds raised from such endeavours remain in the country, since these negotiations are also supposedly ‘handled’ through a foreign owned agency.

In addition, the foreign second and third home owners are even competing with Bahamians in this regard by renting out their luxury homes ‘on the side’, particularly on the Family Islands, to other high worth individuals from abroad. The gubment has finally awakened from their slumber and are considering ways to collect revenue from such transactions. So go figure - who is in charge in this country?

As for the acquisition by a Bahamian of their own plot of land and an actual home of their own, which was often the main goal for young couples of yesteryear, the associated costs attached thereto continue to spiral rapidly out of the range of the ordinary Bahamian’s economic reach.

Another contention lies with cruise ship conglomerates to whom the mustards and ketchups have happily facilitated by handing over entire islands, acreage, and/or cays which they seemingly control as they wish – to the obnoxious extent that they will spend the absolute minimum that they can within our country in order to repatriate the maximum into their sweet fat coffers abroad! How do we, the Bahamian people, benefit from such arrangements? I ask again – who is really in charge?

And unfortunately it doesn’t even end there, because on the other hand there are the illegal migrants who enter the country and set up their homes in shantytowns wherever they desire on ‘free’ land. They have no building permits, no laws to follow, no restrictions, no health and safety measures, no nothing.

Bahamians can’t win for losing, no matter where we look! We are surrounded on all sides by opposition forces that are not checking for us – they are in it to win it for themselves. This is ‘all for me baby’ time!

When are we going to wake up, climb out of the rabbit hole, see what we lookin’ at, and make the necessary changes for the greater good?

PAM BURBSIDE

Nassau,

September 10, 2023.