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THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2023
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Illegal construction fight has been ‘a rank failure’ Claims Bahamas BRIAN SIMMS KC
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
‘in cahoots’ with SBF are ‘shockingly inappropriate’
• Contractor chief warns on ‘incredibly dangerous precedent’ • Says shanty town ruling exposes society’s ‘two sets of laws’ • Legitimate contractors ask: ‘Why should we follow the Act?’
THE BAHAMIAN Contractors Association’s (BCA) president yesterday said builders are asking “why should we follow the law” following the country’s “rank failure to manage the built environment”. Leonard Sands told Tribune Business that the recent shanty town ruling by Chief Justice Sir Ian Winder had further exposed the double standards and “two sets of laws” that exist in Bahamian society due to the multi-decade neglect by successive administrations over enforcement of the Building Regulations. While Sir Ian found that only two of 260 unauthorised structures could be demolished, as other owners had not been properly notified of the Supreme Court injunction preventing further construction, the BCA president said
his ruling did not address the failure by inhabitants to seek permission to build in the first place. Branding the failure to properly enforce the Building Regulations Act as “incredibly dangerous”, due to the “precedent that has been set,” Mr Sands told this newspaper that developers and contractors are openly questioning whether they should endure the cost and time associated with doing projects legitimately by obtaining the
necessary permits and paying due inspection fees. “You’re telling a developer with $100m that they can’t go ahead and start development without the necessary permits, yet you’re allowing almost 300 residents to build and expand without making a single application to any government agency for permits,” he blasted. “What if an illminded developer takes that as precedent and does the same thing? “We have a number of contractors waiting to be engaged
LEONARD SANDS on millions of dollars of work, but they’re waiting on building permit applications to be approved. Is it fair for them to be waiting? You’re also telling a developer, a builder or contractor through the building permit process that they have to pay for all the inspections. If those residents have not paid for inspections, why are we paying money for the right thing to happen and go through all the bureaucracy?
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Atlantis probe can’t be ‘a fishing expedition’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net A TRADE union leader yesterday warned the Government that it must have “a legitimate basis” for its Atlantis labour probe and said: “It cannot be a fishing expedition.” Obie Ferguson KC, also a labour attorney, spoke out
after the Paradise Island mega resort asserted it had “never pressured” any of its 6,000plus staff to publicly or directly oppose Royal Caribbean’s proposed nearby project. Atlantis responded after it was revealed that the Department of Labour has initiated an investigation into whether its workers feel they are being “intimidated” into opposing the cruise line’s
plans and fear for their jobs if they do not. However, Keith Bell, minister of labour and Immigration, yesterday told media outside the House of Assembly that the Department had acted after receiving “a number of complaints” from Atlantis workers that they felt pressured, intimidated and under “undue influence”
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OBIE FERGUSON KC
FOCOL raise could have beaten $16m By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net FOCOL Holdings could have raised “far more” than the $16m received in Monday’s preference share offering, its chairman said yesterday, as it moves into an accelerated “growth mode”. Sir Franklyn Wilson told Tribune Business that the BISX-listed petroleum products supplier, which is now diversifying and expanding into utilities and renewable energy, decided to “cap” its Series E preference share raise at $16m and return to the Bahamian capital markets at a later
SIR FRANKLYN WILSON date when further financing may be needed. Acknowledging that the $16m was itself a 60 percent oversubscription, compared to the original $10m target, he added that FOCOL has
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Bahamas trade deficit up $325m at five-year high By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE BAHAMAS’ trade deficit expanded by $314.6m or 10.7 percent during 2022 to hit a fiveyear high of $3.254bn, it was reveled yesterday, as inflation and higher global oil prices caused import costs to soar. The Bahamas National Statistical Institute, unveiling the annual 2022 foreign trade statistics review, said: “The balance of trade (total exports minus total imports) continued to result in a deficit. The trade deficit increased by 10.7 percent between 2021 and 2022,
resulting in a negative balance of $3.3bn.” While Bahamian exports increased year-over-year by $42.6m or 7.8 percent, growing to $586m from $543.4m in 2021, these figures were not surprisingly dwarfed by imports given that The Bahamas brings in virtually everything it consumes. As a result, imports leapt by $357.1m or 10.3 percent to a new five-year high of $3.84bn as opposed to $3.483bn the year before. The $3.84bn represents foreign exchange that The Bahamas has to generate through a surplus on its capital account,
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JOHN RAY
• FTX creditor group blasts Ray’s attacks on nation • He, Bahamian JPLs ‘not playing nicely in sandbox’ • Call for ‘crossborder protocol’ with Supreme Court By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net AN FTX creditor/investor group yesterday leapt to The Bahamas defence by branding claims that the Government was “in cahoots” with Sam Bankman-Fried as “shockingly inappropriate”. This nation, and the Bahamian provisional liquidators for FTX Digital Markets, appeared to gain some friends in the battle for jurisdictional control of the collapsed crypto currency exchange’s fate as the group called for the creation of a “cross-border protocol” with the Delaware Bankruptcy Court to address all further legal and other disputes. Conceding that Brian Simms KC, the Lennox Paton senior partner, and the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) accounting duo of Kevin Cambridge and Peter Greaves, “do not seem to be ‘playing nicely in the sandbox’” with FTX US chief, John Ray, the group said the crypto exchange’s creditors were “paying the price” for the two sides’ battles through legal fees and wasted time that is reducing potential asset recoveries for themselves. Asserting that the fight between the Bahamian joint provisional liquidators and Mr Ray, who controls 134 FTX entities, is “no longer productive or cost efficient”, the
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