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MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2022
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‘Absolutely livid’ over doubling, tripling tax By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune BUSINESS EDITOR nhartnell@tribunemedia.net REAL property taxpayers were yesterday said to be “absolutely livid” after receiving bills that doubled and tripled their 2022 payments following the recent New Providence-wide revaluation. David Morley, Morley Realty’s principal, told Tribune Business he was likely to be among many challenging their assessments after his residential real property tax bill rose from “less than $4,000 to just under $10,000”, adding that such hikes were “a huge one-shot pill to swallow” for many homeowners and businesses still struggling to recover from COVID-19’s devastation. Commercial property owners have been hit equally hard. One downtown Nassau landlord, speaking on condition of anonymity, told this newspaper that the 2022 tax bills they had received for their two properties on Market Street had increased by
• Real property tax hikes ‘huge oneshot pill to swallow’ • Minister lauds $450m revenue increase over 5 years • Landlord sees downtown hikes of 250% and 184% 250 percent and 184 percent yearover-year, respectively. While conceding that the properties may not have been revalued “in a long time”, they argued that the Government was “hammering” them with a huge increase in their tax burden at a time when only two of eight pre-COVID tenants had
DAVID MORLEY returned. And this duo were only paying 50 percent of their pre-pandemic rent, resulting in a substantial income loss. The concerns coincide with Senator Michael Halkitis, minister of economic affairs, asserting in an
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Bahamian farm eyes 1.4m herbs in $60m joint venture By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A BAHAMIAN hydroponic producer and its US partner last night revealed they will invest $60m in developing a 71,000 square foot facility able to grow “300 times more food” than a traditional farm. Eeden Farms, which launched last year using containerised farms in western New Providence, disclosed that the proposed Gladstone Road-based facility will employ up to 30 Bahamians and produce 1.4m pounds of greens and herbs annually using
robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). The project was unveiled after Eeden Farms and its partner, 80 Acres Farms, gave Prime Minister Philip Davis and Clay Sweeting, minister of agriculture, marine resources and Family Island affairs, together with other officials, financiers and private sector representatives, a tour of the latter’s 70K Farm in Ohio. No mention was made of how far the project has progressed in securing the necessary permits and approvals, or if it has identified and secured the land required for a venture to
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Top US trade body singles out ‘bribes of convenience’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Bahamian political system is “beleaguered by reports of corruption”, a newly-released US government report has asserted, singling out what it labelled as “small scale ‘bribes of convenience’”. The US Trade Representative’s Office, in its latest report on The Bahamas and other Caribbean nations that benefit from the Caribbean Basin Initiative’s (CBI) one-way trade preferences, became the latest Federal government agency to raise concerns about conflicts of interest in the awarding
of government contracts and systemic “patronage” in this nation’s governance system. “The Bahamas has national anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws in place, including criminal penalties for corruption by public officials, including a fine of up to $10,000, a prison term of up to four years, or both,” the US Trade Representative’s report submitted to Congress said. “However, there was limited enforcement of conflicts of interest related to government contracts and isolated reports of officials engaged in
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Airlines ‘pay price’ over COVID surge with 15-20% drop By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net BAHAMIAN domestic airlines have “paid the price” for the recent Omicron-led COVID case surge with a 15-20 percent drop in passenger numbers, an industry executive has revealed. Anthony K Hamilton, president of the Bahamas Association of Air Transport Operators, told Tribune Business that the explosion in infection numbers that began over the Christmas/New Year period had been “painful” for local operators yet they were not “discouraged” by the twoyear hammering inflicted by the pandemic. He added that pilots, in particular, had shown “their willingness to sacrifice” to keep airlines and the Family Island economies they support going, but “right now staying in the business is a major thing” with survival the top priority for many.
“How should I put that? It was meaningful,” Mr Hamilton replied, when asked by this newspaper how the Omicron surge has impacted Bahamian-owned airlines. “I would say we probably got a 15-20 percent hit as a result of that. “We paid the price for it, but one thing I can say about the operators is that they’re not discouraged. It’s painful but they’re hopeful things are going to turn around. That’s why we all need to get together and determine how best to come out of it. “From a socio-economic standpoint it’s not only Nassau that’s impacted; it’s the Family Islands, too. I’m encouraged by the spirit of the operators in not giving up. That’s important,” he continued. “One thing you find from the domestic operators is that their pilots love the industry. The willingness to sacrifice for the recovery is endemic among them; that
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