分类： politics

At a packed political rally held Wednesday night in Grand Bahama’s West End, Bahamian Prime Minister Philip ‘Brave’ Davis delivered an optimistic address framing the island as firmly in the early stages of economic recovery, buoyed by new capital inflows, rising employment, and long-stalled infrastructure projects moving forward.

The leader of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) told attendees that a long-awaited “new chapter” has opened for Grand Bahama, pointing to on-the-ground progress that residents can already see across the island. “People are working again. The new Freeport Health Campus is under construction. Major investments are moving forward. The Grand Bahama Shipyard is expanding, and local workers are accessing new skills training to advance their careers,” Davis said.

Davis also highlighted a recent major investment announcement from global cruise operator MSC Cruises tied to Grand Lucayan, noting that the deal serves as external validation of the Davis administration’s years of targeted work to attract high-impact, sustainable investment to the island. He expressed full confidence that the four PLP candidates running for parliamentary seats across Grand Bahama — incumbent Pineridge MP Ginger Moxey, incumbent West Grand Bahama MP Kingsley Smith, Central Grand Bahama candidate Parko Deal, and Marco City candidate Eddie Whan — will keep the island’s recovery trajectory on track if elected.

A core point of Davis’ address centered on the government’s ongoing standoff with the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) following recent arbitration proceedings. While Davis incorrectly stated that the administration secured a full victory in the arbitration, he emphasized that the PLP government took unprecedented decisive action to hold the private port authority accountable for failing to meet its long-term contractual obligations to the Bahamian people.

“For far too long, this private authority has collected millions in public fees and concessions, but has never held up its end of the bargain for the communities of Grand Bahama,” Davis said. “The era of unaccountable license fee collection is coming to an end. We have put the Port on clear notice: Bahamian people will not continue to subsidize private profits while our local communities crumble from neglect.”

Davis added that moving forward, the administration will take an unflinching stance to enforce the original terms of the Hawksbill Creek Agreement that established the port authority’s mandate. “We will use every legal tool at our disposal, every regulatory power granted to this government, and every bit of political capital we have to make sure the original promises of Hawksbill Creek are finally honored for the people of Grand Bahama,” he said.

The prime minister also used the rally platform to criticize key policy proposals from Opposition Leader Michael Pintard and the Free National Movement (FNM), opening with a sharp rebuke of the opposition’s plan to abolish the Post Office Savings Bank. Davis told the crowd that roughly 7,000 residents of Grand Bahama rely on the community bank, with more than 35,000 users across the entire Bahamas who depend on its accessible savings services.

He also dismissed the FNM’s proposal for a national government-run lottery as an empty political stunt with no real policy substance. “Their national lottery is not a serious plan for the country’s challenges — it’s just a gimmick,” Davis said. “They are chasing newspaper headlines instead of working on actual solutions that improve people’s lives.”

In contrast to what he framed as the opposition’s shallow policy ideas, Davis argued that his administration has prioritized long-term, inclusive growth across the Bahamas through targeted policy action: energy sector reform to lower costs for residents and businesses, large-scale infrastructure investment, expanded workforce skills training, and opening new economic opportunities for all Bahamians.

“While we are investing in real, lasting solutions for the Bahamian people, the opposition’s big idea is to turn the national government into a numbers house,” he added.

Despite rising partisan tensions ahead of the upcoming election, Davis stressed that the progress Grand Bahama has made in recent years is undeniable and will continue under PLP leadership. “For the first time in a generation, we have a government that is finally standing up for the people of Grand Bahama,” he said. “We are not bowing to private special interests or clinging to outdated, unfair arrangements that shortchange local communities.”

Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper also spoke at the rally, confirming that the planned redevelopment of Grand Bahama’s airport is now fully funded and construction is set to move forward. Cooper echoed Davis’ criticism of the previous FNM administration, noting that “for 34 years, the FNM gave the Port Authority a free pass on its obligations, but this PLP government has given them a clear deadline to deliver.”

A fresh political and social clash has erupted in The Bahamas over the opposition’s plan to launch a state-run national lottery, with Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis publicly dismissing the idea as a headline-grabbing, ill-conceived gimmick aligned with a proven failed, corruption-plagued model.

The proposal was put forward Sunday by Michael Pintard, leader of the Free National Movement (FNM), who framed the independent board-overseen lottery as an untapped revenue source to drive national development. Pintard argued the new state system could operate alongside the country’s existing private gaming operators, pointing to frameworks already in place in jurisdictions including the Dominican Republic, Curaçao, Saint Martin and Ghana as successful blueprints for the plan.

But Davis rejected the proposal outright during a press briefing with reporters, calling it a transparent political stunt born of desperation rather than a thoughtful policy solution. He pushed back particularly hard on Pintard’s choice of a model, noting the Dominican Republic’s national lottery has long been mired in confirmed corruption and fraud scandals. Davis questioned the opposition’s true motivations behind the push, suggesting the plan could create a slush fund open to abuse by corrupt actors. He also criticized the proposal for ignoring potential harm to the thousands of Bahamians already employed in the existing gaming industry, as well as the steady tax revenue the country already collects from private gaming operations. “It’s rather odd that you want to turn the Treasury into a gaming house,” Davis told reporters.

The FNM’s announcement has reignited a decades-long contentious national debate that has killed every previous attempt to launch a national lottery in The Bahamas. Multiple past administrations have explored the policy, but all efforts have stalled amid fierce political pushback and widespread public concern. The Christie administration most recently attempted to legalize a lottery through provisions included in the 2014 Gaming Bill, but the plan collapsed after organized opposition from religious groups and large swathes of the public.

Public resistance was clearly demonstrated in the 2013 national gambling referendum, when 59 percent of more than 81,000 participating voters cast ballots against approving a national lottery. Critics of the policy have repeatedly raised overlapping concerns: they question whether The Bahamas’ small population can support a state lottery without eating into existing tax revenues from private gaming, and they warn of persistent risks around lack of transparency, weak regulation, institutional corruption, and disproportionate social harm to low-income households. Supporters of a national lottery, by contrast, argue that a well-regulated system could generate significant new funding for critical public services including education and infrastructure, while also strengthening government oversight of the country’s entire gaming sector.

In line with past opposition to the policy, senior church leaders have already renewed their vocal rejection of the new proposal, echoing the prime minister’s criticism. Bishop Walter Hanchell argued that a national lottery directly contradicts core Christian principles, pointing back to the 2013 referendum’s clear rejection of the policy. He recalled that even after voters rejected expanded gambling and lottery legalization a decade ago, then-Prime Minister Perry Christie moved forward with legalization anyway, against the explicit will of the Bahamian people. Hanchell said every negative outcome the church warned of at the time has since come to pass: rates of gambling addiction have risen sharply, and countless low-income Bahamians lose money earmarked for mortgages, rent and basic groceries to gambling operators every day. He called on national political leaders to abandon the lottery push and instead focus policy efforts on expanding social support and economic empowerment for vulnerable communities.

Bishop Delton Fernander, president of the Bahamas Christian Council, echoed these concerns, noting that the proposal would disproportionately shift the burden of revenue generation onto low- and middle-income Bahamians. He pointed out that the public has already rejected the idea once, yet political actors continue to bring it back to the table. Fernander questioned whether repeated pushes for a national lottery are ultimately aimed at privatizing the lucrative sector for the benefit of a small, connected group of private actors. The Bahamas Christian Council has long maintained an unwavering opposition to the policy, he said, and past data already confirmed the country’s population is too small to sustain the system without major harm. Fernander added that critical public safeguards remain unaddressed more than a decade after the last debate, including targeted rehabilitation programs for people living with gambling addiction and formal systems to identify and support compulsive gamblers. Introducing a national lottery without first putting these protections in place, he warned, would only deepen the country’s existing social and economic inequalities.

Newly obtained official records from The Tribune have pulled back the curtain on attendance trends among members of the Bahamas’ House of Assembly, exposing significant disparities in participation among sitting lawmakers since the Davis administration took power in 2021. At the top of the list of the most frequently absent parliamentarians are three senior figures from the ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP): Foreign Affairs Minister and PLP Chairman Fred Mitchell, Central and South Abaco MP John Pinder, and Mount Moriah MP and Bahamas Public Parks and Beaches Authority chairman McKell Bonaby. All three have maintained attendance rates below 80 percent across the two parliamentary sessions covered in the data.

The dataset spans two full parliamentary periods: 88 sittings held between October 2021 and August 2023, and an additional 106 sittings running from October 2023 through March 2026. Mitchell, who represents the Fox Hill constituency, has missed 76 total sittings, translating to an attendance rate of just 60.8 percent – the lowest among all sitting members. When reached for comment by The Tribune, Mitchell declined to provide any explanation for his high number of absences.

Following closely behind Mitchell is Pinder, who has missed 55 sittings for a 71.6 percent attendance rate, and Bonaby, with 52 absences and a 73.2 percent attendance rate. Neither lawmaker responded to repeated requests for comment from The Tribune regarding their poor attendance track records. Energy Minister JoBeth Coleby-Davis came just behind this trio, missing 47 sittings to notch a 75.8 percent attendance rate. Seabreeze MP Leslia Miller-Brice missed 43 sittings, while North Andros and Berry Islands MP Leonardo Lightbourne missed 41 – with official records noting that one of Lightbourne’s absences was excused due to his participation in an official parliamentary conference.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, opposition Free National Movement (FNM) lawmakers claim the top three spots for the most consistent attendance. FNM leader and Marco City MP Michael Pintard, MICAL MP Basil McIntosh, and St Barnabas MP Shanendon Cartwright hold the best attendance records in the entire body. After these three opposition figures, Englerston MP Glenys Hanna-Martin, North Eleuthera MP Sylvanus Petty, Carmichael MP Keith Bell and Freetown MP Wayne Munroe all posted attendance rates at or above 90 percent, placing them among the most active participants in House proceedings.

One particularly notable entry in the records is the late Obie Wilchcombe, former MP for West Grand Bahama and Bimini, who maintained a perfect attendance record with zero absences before his unexpected passing in September 2023. The vast majority of other sitting lawmakers, including Prime Minister Philip Davis, Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper, and former Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis, all hold attendance rates above the 80 percent threshold. Kingsley Smith, who won the 2023 by-election to fill Wilchcombe’s vacant West Grand Bahama and Bimini seat, has missed 14 sittings since taking office, while Darron Pickstock – who won the Golden Isles by-election last November – has only missed one sitting in his short tenure so far.