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MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2025
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Chief Justice extends San Salvador water cut-off bar
Bahamas warned: ‘Brace’ for 2008-2009 recession repeat
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By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Chief Justice has granted a seven-month extension to an injunction barring a water provider from causing “decimation of the business and residential community of San Salvador” by cutting off supply. Sir Ian Winder, in an April 3, 2025, verdict extended until early November the “emergency” injunction obtained by the Water & Sewerage Corporation that blocked Aqua Design (Bahamas) from ceasing water production at the reverse osmosis plant supplying all the former’s San Salvador customers over purported “safety risks”. The ruling further highlights the long-troubled, strained relationship between the Water & Sewerage Corporation and the
SIR IAN WINDER private operator that supplies water to its clients from seven Family Island plants located in Exuma, Eleuthera, San Salvador and Inagua. The stateowned water provider obtained the initial injunction just one day before Aqua Design was set to walk away and abandon San Salvador. Rather than discharge the injunction, as Aqua Design had urged, Sir Ian
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BAHAMIANS must “brace” for a potential global depression and repeat of the 2008-2009 economic contraction, which saw thousands lose their jobs, due to Donald Trump’s tariff policies, a local economist is warning. Therese Turner-Jones, a former senior InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) and Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) executive, told an Organisation for Responsible Governance (ORG) seminar she is “not being dramatic, but realistic” about the likely fall-out the
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long-established global economic order, she added that The Bahamas now finds itself in a landscape that is “going to look very different for the rest of this year” with previous forecasts now likely shredded. Asserting that The Bahamas is “going to be
hit very, very, very, very hard” by the US president’s imposition of so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on virtually all other nations, with Russia being a notable exception, Ms Turner-Jones said the actual 10 percent levy imposed on this nation’s exports to North America is “the least of the problems”. While the tariff will make Bahamian exports to the US, which totalled $608.176m in 2023, more expensive and potentially less competitive, she echoed the Government in agreeing that the biggest impact will come from how it disrupts the
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‘Significant downside risks’ as deficit hits $400m mark By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Government’s deficit for the first seven months of the current fiscal year breached the $400m
mark as a key watchdog warned of “significant downside risks” to its fiscal forecasts and targets. The Ministry of Finance, unveiling its January 2025 fiscal performance report, revealed it narrowly missed
achieving a balanced Budget for the month via a near-92 percent cut in the deficit from $45.9m in the prior year to just $3.8m. But the latter figure was still sufficient to push the total deficit for the first seven months of the 20242025 fiscal year through the $400m barrier, taking it to $401.8m - a sum more than five-and-a-half times’ greater than the $69.8m full-year deficit target. The end-January figure is now some 575.9 percent higher than the Davis administration’s goal, meaning it will have to generate a $332m surplus - the amount by which revenue income must exceed the Government’s total spending - over the final five months of the 20242025 fiscal period to hit its
year-end ambitions. And that sum is nearly five times’ greater than the $72m surplus it achieved in the 2023-2024 second half. The magnitude of the required correction did not escape the attention of the newly-reformed Fiscal Responsibility Council, the watchdog with vetting the accuracy and reasonableness of the Government’s budgetary projections, which noted that this will have to be achieved amid “significant downside risks” - not least of which is the global economic fallout from Donald Trump’s newly-enacted trade and tariff policies. The Council (FRC), in its just-released report on the Government’s mid-year
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Creators Alliance participants urged: Speak to Commission By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Securities Commission is pleading with Bahamians who invested with Creators Alliance to contact it after declaring the venture has “the hallmarks of a pyramid scheme” - a common type of financial fraud. Christina Rolle, its executive director, told Tribune Business that the online content investment scheme has been under investigation by the Bahamian regulator for around two weeks and the probe - which is set to continue will be conducted alongside the Royal Bahamas Police Force. Acknowledging that “no formal complaint” has been made to the Commission about Creators Alliance, she nevertheless disclosed that the investigation’s
CHRISTINA ROLLE findings to-date have given it sufficient evidence to declare that the scheme is likely an “unlawful operation” in The Bahamas. “We certainly are,” Ms Rolle replied, when asked by this newspaper if the Securities Commission is scrutinising Creators Alliance. “We’ve been investigating them for about two weeks. We’ve seen some activity and
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