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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2022
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Old Fort Bay ‘torn’ by escalating fight By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
• Community ‘soured’ by 50% security fee hike row • And now sliced in two by access gate’s closure • Fears access and waterway rights trampled on
ONE of western New Providence’s most upscale communities is being “torn” apart through an escalating dispute triggered by demands that homeowners finance a 50 percent increase in security costs. Multiple homeowners in the subdivisions that comprise Old Fort Bay, in interviews with Tribune Business, said they and their neighbours have steadily become more “soured and depressed” during a year which has literally seen the high-end community split in two. They revealed that the disagreement over security fees has morphed into the closure of a gate that now prevents residents from roaming freely throughout their community, with one 30-year western New Providence homeowner and
Old Fort Bay dweller saying: “In all my years I have never seen anything like this ever. It’s really sad. Sad. Just sad.” Old Fort Bay is effectively a collection of several subdivisions. Besides Old Fort Bay itself, there is also the Islands of Old Fort that was developed by Orjan Lindroth, plus Lester Smith’s Bay Creek section. After the Islands and Bay Creek homeowners declined to pay their share of the increased
security fees, on the basis that the 50 percent hike had not been justified, the Old Fort Bay Property Owners Association’s Board ultimately reacted by closing the middle access gate. This means that, for several months, Old Fort Bay residents have been unable to cross over into the Islands and Bay Creek sections and vice versa. Homeowners in Islands and Bay Creek now have to jump
Food retailers ‘trying like hell’ for Friday solutions
in their vehicles and drive to Old Fort Bay’s main entrance to visit the development’s club, for example, while their Old Fort Bay counterparts must do likewise to visit their sections via the access gate on Western Road. Edward Chemaly, a Bay Creek homeowner, told Tribune Business the growing divisions “exploded” in early September after an Association Board member threatened to block the boating access he and other residents enjoy to the community’s canal and waterway on the basis that they had not contributed to dredging and security costs. While the Association subsequently clarified it was not seeking to cut-off boating access, the episode has added to the growing tensions and deepened Old Fort Bay’s divide. Mr Chemaly, and others, have alleged that the Association’s Board has
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Bahamas cannot be blacklisting ‘pariah’ By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Bahamas will not risk becoming a global “pariah” by rejecting the countries and organisations that continue to ‘blacklist’ its financial services industry, a Cabinet minister asserted yesterday. Jomo Campbell, minister of state for legal affairs, told
the House of Assembly that the Government will not heed the calls of those demanding The Bahamas cut all ties with the likes of the European Union (EU) and Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) because of how unfairly they treat this nation. Speaking as MPs passed the first legal reforms aimed at addressing The Bahamas’ tax
co-operation deficiencies, he asserted: “It is incumbent on this government to safeguard our economy, and a large part of our economy is the financial services sector. “There are some who think we should remove ourselves from the purview of international organisations because of blacklistings and non-cooperative ratings. However, The
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JOMO CAMPBELL
BTVI overpaid staff by nearly $100,000 By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute (BTVI) potentially overpaid its 135 staff by almost $100,000 over the ten months to end-July 2020, it was revealed yesterday. The Auditor General’s Office, in a probe covering the three years to end-June 2021, called on the education facility to explain discrepancies that revealed a collective $95,596 more was paid out to staff over that period than was shown on the payroll spreadsheet. While BTVI’s bank statements disclosed that
$1.271m was paid in total employee salaries for seven months during that timespan, namely October, November and December 2019 and January, March, June and July 2020, its payroll spreadsheet said only a collective $1.176m was due. “We examined payroll totals for the period of October 15, 2019, through July 30, 2020,” the Auditor General’s Office found. “We observed a difference of $95,597. It is recommended that the Institute provide an explanation for the difference of $95,597.” No such explanation was forthcoming from BTVI management in response to
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EU blacklist: ‘Square peg in round holes’ By NEIL HARTNELL and YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporters THE Government and Opposition yesterday continued to trade blows over who was responsible for The Bahamas’ blacklisting by the European Union (EU) amid accusations a key reporting system “did not cut the mustard”. Wayde Watson, the Ministry of Economic Affairs parliamentary secretary, told the House of Assembly that the Minnis administration had sought to “put a square peg in a round hole” in trying to expand the Government’s existing
Revenue Management System (RMS) to handle the EU’s economic substance reporting demands. However, Michael Pintard, the Free National Movement (FNM) leader, said The Bahamas’ listing for allegedly being non-cooperative on international tax matters resulted from the Davis administration being “late again” and failing to follow through on the strategy left behind by the former administration to address the reporting deficiencies identified by the EU.
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By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net BAHAMIAN food retailers were yesterday “trying like hell” to meet Friday’s deadline to produce an acceptable alternative to the Government’s “catastrophic” price control expansion. Philip Beneby, the Retail Grocers Association’s president, told Tribune Business that the industry was “working as hard as we can” to meet the tight timeline provided to come up with a solution agreeable to both sides as well as ease the cost of living crisis for Bahamian consumers. Declining to provide details on any proposals for fear it will prejudice the outcome of negotiations with the Government, he indicated that coming up with a workable plan by Friday will be challenging given the need to consult both Family Island food merchants as well as wholesalers to gain their input. “All I can say is that we’re working as hard as we can to see if we can come up with a suitable solution and one that the Government could accept,” Mr Beneby told this newspaper. “It’s not easy because we have to communicate with those in the Family Islands as well, and so we are trying as best we can to have it ready for Friday. It is a work in motion. It’s tight “All I can say is we’re trying like hell to do so. We hope we do. Everybody is on board trying to work it out. It is a group effort, and we have to take consultation with the wholesalers as well. Dozens, dozens of people are involved. We’ll have to see how it goes. I can’t say too much. We don’t want to aggravate it. We want everything to be done in good faith, and don’t want to pre-empt our efforts. We’re working, we’re working. Give us a chance; let us see what we can come up with.” Mr Beneby spoke out after the Association warned, in a statement, that expanding price control by 38 product categories would potentially cover up to 5,000 different line items due to the varieties involved. This would mark a major increase in products sold at a loss, or socalled loss leaders, with between 40-60 percent of a food store’s inventory covered by price control. “While the Retail Grocers Association affirms its commitment to working with the
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