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TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 2024
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Top KCs hired amid bid to avoid $200m GBPA battle By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net TWO top attorneys have been hired by the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) to defend an anticipated $200m demand from the Government amid lastditch efforts to avoid a legal confrontation. Tribune Business can reveal that Fred Smith KC, the Callenders & Co partner and former GBPA external counsel, and Robert Adams KC, the Delaney
Partners attorney, have been engaged by Freeport’s quasigovernmental regulator should the Davis administration initiate arbitration proceedings over its reimbursement claims. This newspaper understands that the unpaid bills/invoices submitted to the GBPA, claiming sums allegedly due to the Government to cover the costs of providing public services in Freeport that exceed tax revenues generated by the city, now total over $150m - with the expectation of further imminent demands that
will take the final sum sought to over $200m. Both Mr Smith and Mr Adams declined to comment when contacted by this newspaper yesterday. However, it is also understood that the Government has hired a London-based law firm, Simons Muirhead Burton, to represent it and help argue its case should it progress to actual arbitration. Tribune Business sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said attorneys for both sides will likely meet soon - possibly
AN ex-deputy prime minister yesterday branded the Government’s handling of Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) reforms “an insult to the Bahamian people” as it emerged the utility’s “financing needs” exceed $500m. Desmond Bannister, who held ministerial responsibility for the stateowned electricity provider under the Minnis administration, told Tribune Business that “we were not prepared to do any secret deals” involving The Bahamas’ energy and water assets after the Government’s plans to outsource management of key BPL functions was revealed. The possible split, or break-up, of BPL into
three separate entities was disclosed as the Government’s mid-year Budget noted that it would have to provide a taxpayer guarantee of “at least” around $100m to underpin the more than half-a-billion dollars in new financing that the power provider still requires. “Financing needs exceeding $500m,” the mid-year Budget book
said of BPL on page 120. “Would need at least roughly $100m guaranteed.” This huge capital requirement, and a guarantee that would account for around half or 50 percent of the $198m-$218m in total such support required by all state-owned enterprises (SOEs), explains why the Government is so eager to find private sector partners for BPL. However, the Davis administration was over the weekend forced into
damage control mode after the two trade unions representing BPL’s middle management and line staff voiced strong opposition proposed public-private partnership (PPP) agreements following meetings with their respective memberships. Prime Minister Philip Davis KC denied the Government plans to privatise BPL by selling its assets and business operations
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URCA rejects Cable’s Starlink ‘level playing field’ push back consultation on its draft annual plan for 2024, disclosed that the BISX-listed communications provider is “unconvinced” that it is receiving regulatory treatment comparable with that enjoyed by the Tesla and Twitter (X) magnate’s new market entrant. “The Cable Bahamas group believes satellite regulation must be equitable and comparable to the telecommunications
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net REGULATORS yesterday rejected Cable Bahamas’ renewed concerns that it is competing on an “unlevel playing field” against Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite Internet service. The Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA), in unveiling feedback to the
CABLE BAHAMAS HEADQUARTERS
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Hotel workers gain ‘tens of millions’ via new deal By FAY SIMMONS Tribune Business Reporter jsimmons@tribunemedia.net HOTEL workers will receive “tens of millions of dollars” in extra financial benefits following yesterday’s signing of the industry’s first industrial agreement for more than a decade. Russell Miller, president of the Bahamas Hotel and Restaurant Employers
Association (BHREA), which represented Atlantis, the Ocean Club and the Lyford Cay Club in the negotiations with the Bahamas Hotel, Catering and Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU), said the deal will impact the take home pay of 10,000 resort employees “substantially”. He added that the increased compensation was the “right thing to do”, even though it will cost the resort industry, as workers
had not received a raise in 12 years. Mr Miller said: “Within the industry it benefits almost 10,000 team members comprising Atlantis, of course. The majority are Atlantis but also the other member hotels of Four Seasons Ocean Club, Lyford Cay Club and Town Hotel. It’s in the millions, in the tens of millions. I won’t give you the exact number, but over the course of the life of the
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JAMES CAREY
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Gas dealers: ‘Silence too great’ on margin increase
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ROBERT ADAMS KC
as early as next month April - to see if the dispute between the Government and GBPA can be resolved without resorting to arbitration and subsequent legal appeals that could drag the battle out for years and potentially harm Freeport’s attractiveness to Bahamian and foreign investment. “The lawyers are discussing, identifying dates for a series of meetings to see if there’s a way to compromise and resolve the dispute,” one contact revealed.
BPL ‘requires over $500m’ as Bannister blasts ‘insult’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
FRED SMITH KC
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agreement, it’s in the tens of millions. “Some of the changes in the agreement are things that, for the last 11-12 years have not been affected, have not been impacted. So that we’ve come to an agreement, we’ve reached the agreement, it impacts the overall take home performance of our team members substantially.
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By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net GAS station operators yesterday said “we cannot wait longer than a week” for the Prime Minister to respond to cries to address their plight, with one asserting: “The silence is too great.” Raymond Jones, the Bahamas Petroleum Retailers Association’s (BPRA) president, told Tribune Business to “stay tuned” when asked what action petroleum dealers may take if there was no reply to their request for an “urgent meeting” with Philip Davis KC to tackle the “dire straits” caused by fixed gasoline margins that have remained unchanged for 12 years. The Association, in its February 26, 2024, letter to the Prime Minister, added that increases to the 54 cents per gallon of gasoline, and 34 cents per gallon of diesel, margins are
“so desperately needed” because it is impossible for them to cover costs that have escalated significantly over the past decade-plus. “Prime Minister, on behalf of our members, I wish to request an urgent meeting with you to discuss the dire straits that petroleum retailers find themselves. With your leadership, we must come to a final resolution on the margin adjustment,” Mr Jones wrote for the Association. “Over the past two years, several proposals have been discussed and, in April 2023, a proposal from the Government was accepted by our association but to date not yet implemented by the Government. Prime Minister, while we all admire the great work that you and your government are doing, petroleum retailers need immediate change to the fuel margin. “Many petroleum retailers are at the point of
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