Bahama Pundit

Select Committee Reports on Montagu Redevelopment

by Larry Smith

After 40 years, there are signs that the Montagu shoreline could be in for some big improvements. But don't bet on it - the area has a long history of missed opportunities.

A parliamentary committee reported last week after a two-year study. And consultants working on the redevelopment of Nassau have also published their two-year-old recommendations for the Montagu area.

The two proposals conflict with each other. And there is no allocation in the current budget to implement the suggested changes anyway.

Once a fashionable resort, the Montagu today is a crowded recreational site for joggers, inner-city families, cookout vendors, sailing enthusiasts and boaters. But years of neglect and lack of planning have led to huge envronmental management problems.

On Developments, Speculation, and the Bahamian Nation

by Nicolette Bethel

I have an uncle who was once Bishop of Nassau, The Bahamas, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. When I was a child, he was Father Eldon, priest of West End, Grand Bahama. I never saw him. He came to Nassau on one or two occasions a year only, because he was living and working and teaching and building in the West End community. He left West End to be made Bishop in 1972, and what he did from there Anglicans other than myself will be able to say better.

The point is this. West End, Grand Bahama, was the first place outside of Nassau I heard of as a child, because my uncle lived there. And he loved it with a passion others reserve for the places their navel strings are buried.

I had the opportunity to go to West End for the first time at the end of the 1980s, where I visited a school friend from Freeport and where we drove out to the settlements that had been part of my imagination since I could think for myself, Eight Mile Rock and West End. The drive, as many drives in Grand Bahama were and remained until the flooding of that island during the hurricanes, was long and wooded: pines and their companion palms (mostly the favoured silvertop, the best material for our straw industry) for miles and miles and miles. It wasn’t the most auspicious or beautiful scenery, but it was ours. Not mine, specifically, but Bahamian, Grand Bahamian, and – by extension – my uncle’s.

All that land. Just waiting to be developed.

Advice for Politicians and the Media as Bahamian Elections Near

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

There is bound to be tension between politicians and the media in a democracy. As a certain television commercial used to say, it has always been thus. At certain times, such as election season or when there is a particularly hot issue or when a government or individual politician gets into hot water, the tension is likely to mount.

Bahamians are already looking to the next general election, there are a lot of hot issues and the government of the day is in hot water – at least in the eyes of its critics and opponents. So it is not surprising that tensions between some politicians and the media should heighten.

All politicians are pleased when the media gives coverage to the good things they do or say. But some tend to get quite agitated when the media gives them short shrift, and the more sensitive ones get downright apoplectic when the media dares to point out their mistakes.

Carlos Lehder's Bahamian Legacy

by Larry Smith

Recently, a Bahamian political weblog posted a claim that Carlos Lehder - the notorious Colombian drug lord sentenced to life imprisonment in Florida in 1988 - was living comfortably with his wife on Paradise Island.

How could this be? Well it turns out that Lehder cut a deal with the US government in 1992 to help convict former Panama dictator Manuel Noriega on drug trafficking and money laundering charges. Noriega was part of Lehder's cocaine cartel in the 1980s.

That much is true, and there doesn't seem to be any doubt that Noriega remains in a federal prison in Miami (although he is due for release next year). But some are convinced that the US government freed Lehder in the 1990s.

The Conflict at the Grand Bahama Port Authority

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

Bahamians are becoming increasingly apprehensive over the future of Freeport and Grand Bahama in the wake of disturbing events at the Grand Bahama Port Authority, the corporate entity responsible for the management of the nation’s second city.

First, Julian Francis resigned as chairman and chief executive officer of the Authority, then Barry Malcolm stepped down as executive vice president. These resignations were followed by an announcement that the post of deputy chairman, which had been occupied by Mrs. Willie Moss, had been made redundant.

In just about two months the top three Bahamian executives at the Port were gone. All three are highly qualified and experienced persons. Mr. Francis is a former governor of the Central Bank of The Bahamas, Mr. Malcolm a former high-ranking officer of the Inter-American Development Bank, and Mrs. Moss an experienced Bahamian attorney and administrator.

Bahamian Foreign Affairs - Venezuela, Caricom & the US

by Larry Smith

At a recent University of the West Indies conference here, a participant named Maxine Seymour delivered a paper exploring Bahamian attitudes towards Caribbean integration.

She contrasted our relations with Caricom and the United States: “It is possible that the country (sic) that acts as the more influential external source may be the one that the Bahamas is more integrated with.”

Ms Seymour compared the many American fast food joints here with the absence of West Indian restaurants, observed that Bahamian kids played basketball rather than cricket, and noted that we declined regional participation to set up our own replacement for the British GCE, “usually accompanied by the SAT – a US exam.”

Turning to economics, she said tourism earns half of our national income, and about 90 per cent of our visitors are from North America. More than a hundred US-affiliated businesses operate here and most imports of food and manufactures come from the US, which – at its closest point – is only 45 miles away.

The United States and the Bahamas co-operate closely on matters such as law enforcement, civil aviation, marine research, meteorology and agriculture. The US Embassy contributes about $26 million a year in direct inputs to the Bahamian economy, not including the $10.8 million from the US Navy for the AUTEC facility on Andros.

But, while acknowledging that “the US boasts strong ties and neighbourly cooperation,” Ms Seymour was still able to complain about the Bahamian lack of integration with the Caribbean.

Her contrarian conclusion was that US/Bahamian relations “cannot be sustained at the expense of strengthening ties with the Caribbean...the US and the Bahamas may be friends, but the Bahamas and the countries of the Caribbean are family.”

Naming Nassau Airport after Sir Lynden Pindling Brings back Memories

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

It is a pity that this year’s celebration of our independence has been somewhat marred by the row over the renaming of Nassau International Airport by the PLP Government.

Whether out of sheer incompetence or their usual penchant for slighting the Official Opposition, the Government failed to deliver to Opposition Leader Hubert Ingraham a proper invitation to the ceremony renaming the airport after Sir Lynden Pindling.

Neither did the Government deliver invitations to the other members of the Official Opposition in the House of Assembly.

Counting the Costs of a Government-run Health System in the Bahamas

by Larry Smith

If our new Health Minister is anything to go by, it’s clear the government has decided to take advantage of an upbeat economy to bet the next election on a massive expansion of social services.

“National health insurance is so important that it shouldn't be delayed any longer," Dr Bernard Nottage told the Chamber of Commerce last week, trying to appear large and in charge.

Acknowledging that this would require legislation, he said that would be accomplished within three months: "The final consultation process is going to be intense because we're on a short timeframe.”

The aim is to set up a system of mandatory social insurance as proposed by the government’s Blue Ribbon Commission on healthcare. This calls for a new payroll tax, and will add enormously to our inefficient public sector.

There may be a genuine concern driving this debate, but the obvious political motives should not be allowed to defeat good advice. The goal should be to ensure that whatever system is put in place makes sense, and is not wasteful, foolish or impractical.

Wish for a New World Vision as America Celebrates Birthday

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land:
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The great experiment that is the United States of America was barely into its second century in 1883 when Emma Lazarus penned her powerful sonnet, The New Colossus.

These words were later inscribed at the base of the statue, Liberty Enlightening the World. No mythical god here, no fierce warrior, but a woman, a woman with the broken chains of tyranny at her feet and the torch of liberty held high for all the world to see.