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MONDAY, JULY 26, 2021
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wins 2% of Super Value chief calls for Ex-MP claim over his ‘most ‘brutal’ COVID enforcement humiliating episode’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
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UPER Value’s president yesterday urged the authorities to “brutally enforce” COVID-19 health protocols as he revealed the supermarket chain has “had more cases in the last month than ever before”. Rupert Roberts, speaking after the government unveiled tighter restrictions in a bid to curb soaring infection rates, told Tribune Business that the spike was likely due to persons failing to abide by long-standing measures such as social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing. Voicing fears that the case surge, with another 62 cases recorded on Saturday, could “destroy the economy” and setback tourism’s revival if left unchecked, he warned that The Bahamas cannot afford any repeat of the “lockdowns” implemented in 2020. Mr Roberts also suggested that The Bahamas could evolve into a two-tier society if vaccination rates
• Chain sees most monthly cases since pandemic start • Fears case rise will ‘destroy economy’ if not checked • Two-tier society of vaccinated/non-vaccinated emerging
RUPERT ROBERTS do not improve when new supply becomes available, adding that non-vaccinated persons could effectively “lock themselves in” and “not be able to participate in the economy and regular life”. While encouraged by talk among Super Value’s staff and customers that they will be more inclined to take COVID vaccines once the Pfizer brand arrives in The Bahamas, which is projected to happen in the upcoming quarter, Mr Roberts argued that the
Taylor Industries owners give ex-staff $150k boost By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
THE Supreme Court has approved a transaction that will see Taylor Industries’ former owners make a $150,000 payment that could significantly boost recoveries for former staff of the insolvent retailer. Court documents reveal that the monies, generated from the $2.335m sale of the merchant’s former Shirley Street headquarters, could potentially more than double recoveries for a liquidation estate whose preferential creditors include 43 former employees adjudged to be owed
a combined $691,535 in termination pay and other benefits when the electrical retailer/contractor collapsed. Andrew Davies, the Crowe Bahamas accountant, in an affidavit filed with the Supreme Court said the liquidation would receive the $150,000 from the Taylor and Mabon families in exchange for the 1.09 percent stake held by Taylor Industries in a company called Rolyat Ltd. That latter entity, which formerly owned the Shirley Street head office, also holds Taylor Industries’ former Dunmore Street
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Aviation faces ‘curve ball’ from COVID restrictions
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
THE Bahamian aviation industry was yesterday said to have been thrown “a curve ball” by the government’s tightening of COVID restrictions having regained just 40-50 percent of prepandemic business. Anthony K Hamilton, Southern Air’s director of administration, and president of the Bahamas Association of Air Transport Operators, told Tribune Business that the industry will have “to roll with the punches” after the
government reintroduced the PCR test requirement for all non-vaccinated travellers leaving New Providence, Grand Bahama and Eleuthera/Harbour Island. He said the measures, brought in to counter the latest spike in COVID-19 cases that is threatening to overwhelm the public health system, will “certainly have an impact” on domestic aviation operators and the wider industry through “minimising to some degree the traffic potential”.
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nation is presently in the midst of its “worst infection wave ever” with the public healthcare system again stretched to breaking point. Some 100 persons are presently hospitalised with COVID-19, including ten who are in intensive care, with some 1,455 active cases spread across The Bahamas. “We have to do something to stop the spread; they have to slow down this spread,” Mr Roberts told Tribune Business. “I think people have reverted back to the status quo, and we need something to bring their attention back to the protocols that they should be following, which I think they have gotten away from. I think that the medical authorities really have to get brutal with enforcing the restrictions. It’s just getting out of hand, and the reason it’s getting out of hand is because they’re not following the protocols.”
Mr Roberts said he had spoken to both Dr Duane Sands, ex-minister of health, and Dr Nikkiah Forbes, The Bahamas’ head of infectious diseases, on the matter and reiterated: “I think they should get more brutal about the enforcement. We’re headed for another lockdown unless we hold this off, and the population starts listening. “Everybody saw this wave coming. We’re feeling it [at Super Value] because on Friday we had our second death. I told Dr Sands and Dr Forbes that we’ve had more cases in the last month than we’ve ever had since this pandemic began. It’s because people are not listening. “I don’t have enough medical knowledge to suggest what to do, but the people who know have to get on with it. We seem to
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By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
AN ex-PLP MP has won just two percent of his $84,420 legal claim against the government for what he described as “the most humiliating episode of my professional career”. Ron Pinder, Marathon’s MP from 2002-2007, also slammed a civil service appointments culture that is used “to play games with people’s lives” when giving evidence before the Industrial Tribunal to support his wrongful and/or unfair dismissal claim against the Ministry of Public Service and National Insurance. The former parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Health, who was appointed as deputy registrar general in 2013 under the second Christie administration before being transferred to the Law Reform Commission, had claimed he was “entitled to reinstatement and/or compensation and damages” after it was determined his services were no longer required following the FNM’s May 2017
Public service culture ‘plays games with people’s lives’
RON PINDER general election win. However, Simone Fitzcharles, the Industrial Tribunal’s vice-president, found all Mr Pinder was entitled to beyond the $25,034 he received when terminated was $1,900 as a mixture of general salary increases and increments stemming from the Bahamas Public Services Union’s (BPSU) new industrial agreement that took effect in 2014. Tribune Business records show Mr Pinder was transferred from his post as
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