The above is a letter to Tribune Business Editor Neil Hartnell from FNM leader Hubert Ingraham, PC, MP for North Abaco.
I read with interest the article penned by you in this morning’s Tribune titled “Questions on Ginn ‘suitability’ for low lying West End” and found most of your commentary to have accurately reflected statements and views expressed by me at the FNM Mass Rally in Freeport on Friday past.
However, your comment as follows does not reflect what I said on Friday:
“Mr Ingraham then criticised the incentives he claimed were being granted to the developers, a move again illustrates the remarkable role reversal that has taken place in Bahamian politics since 2002. Prior to that year’s election, it was the PLP that had been criticising the Ingraham administration for giving too many incentives and ‘selling out’ the Bahamas to foreigners, but now Mr Christie is in office, the roles have effectively been exchanged.”
There has been no reversal in the position of the FNM with regard to foreign investment in the Bahamas. The FNM does not and has never opposed the grant of incentives and concessions to encourage and promote foreign investments. It is a generally accepted fact that the use of concessions and incentives is an important development tool, used not only in the developing world but in economies as diverse as the United States of America and the United Kingdom, to stimulate targeted economic activity.
To suggest that the FNM has reversed its position on foreign investment would suggest that you have not read the full text of my remarks, or have poorly interpreted what was expressed therein.
I refer in this regard to the following excerpts from my Friday remarks which clearly state that the FNM not only welcomes foreign investments in the Bahamas but relays how the FNM effectively used such investments to fuel the resurgence of the Bahamian economy between 1992 and 2002 and to create 40,000 new and additional jobs throughout the country.
“The FNM Is Investment Friendly –
“The FNM supports investments, Bahamian and foreign. The FNM believes that an agreement for investments, even if made during difficult times, must be able to stand the light of day in good times.
“Mr Christie and his Cabinet Minister now say that our economy is restored following the hurricanes; indeed, restored faster than anyone expected. If that is the case why are they granting investment concessions and tax concessions the likes of which have never been considered or seen by any government of the Bahamas at any time since these islands of ours were populated and Woodes Rogers became the first Royal Governor in 1629?
“Why does this government require Bahamians and foreigners alike, who buy or sell property anywhere in the Bahamas, to pay a tax of 10 per cent on property transfers with a value of $250,000 or more while entering into a deal with one investor in West Grand Bahama to pay just 2 per cent on property transfers?
“The FNM believes that properly funded, clean international investment is a critically important, indeed, a very necessary component to our economic growth and development.
“After all, it was an FNM government that restored investor confidence in the Bahamas after August, 1992.
“It was an FNM government which successfully convinced reputable investors that it was economically safe to return to The Bahamas after 1992.
“We set clear and transparent rules for investment in our country, we applied the same rules to all comers and we made public every agreement concluded with international investors. Nothing approved for one investor. local or international, was not available to the next investor on the same terms and conditions.
“Investments Generated Benefits Under the FNM:
“Our investment policy facilitated the inflow of more than $4 billion in direct foreign investment during our two terms in office, more than $1 billion directly into this island’s economy creating thousands of construction related jobs, 40,000 permanent jobs and countless opportunities for a number of new Bahamian owned entrepreneurs in the retail sector, in construction, in real estate, in entertainment, in transportation, in food and beverage, in light manufacturing.
“Under the FNM unemployment in Grand Bahama fell from 16.4 per cent in 1992 to 6.4 per cent in 2002.
“In 1992, 3,610 persons were unemployed in Grand Bahama; by 2002 the number of unemployed had dropped to 1,610 – less than half.
“In just the first three years in office, the FNM created 12,740 new jobs across the country; 1,560 of those jobs were created right here in Grand Bahama.
“In the first three years in office they have created 5,650 jobs – less than half that of the FNM.
“In the first three years of FNM government Grand Bahama’s unemployment rate dropped from 16.9 percent to 10.2 per cent.
“Under the FNM the number of employed persons in Grand Bahama increased from 16,300, in 1992 to 20,533 in 2001; and household incomes in Grand ļ¾ Bahama increased by more than 50 per cent.
“The FNM’s success between 1992 and 2002 was fuelled by foreign and local investment and dedicated, responsible and accountable government. That’s what made our success possible.
“No, the FNM has no argument with any investor. We have arguments with the application of different rules for different people under the PLP. And we have an argument with secret agreements.
“The Absence of Transparency Under the PLP
“The Prime Minister doesn’t, want me to report to the people. But he won’t report. He talks a
lot. He says a lot of stuff. But he does not reveal the full details of the agreements he is making with different investors. He knows, that he’s not being fully transparent and accountable about these things.
“I believe the Prime Minister is afraid to tell you what he’s doing, what he’s agreeing to.
“And, if he says this is not so, let him tell you all he is giving, away in the deal they will announce in the coming days for West Grand Bahama.
“He says he’s transparent and that he reports the details of investment agreements concluded by his government in the House of Assembly. But he doesn’t table all of the agreements; he keeps some agreements and some side letters secret.
“Well, if he’s not going to report all the details, we in the FNM will discover what the details are and we will report to you! We will keep their feet to the fire to ensure that they act in, your, not their, best interests.”
I strongly object to any suggestion that my position or that of the FNM on foreign investments in any way approximates the position on foreign investments held by the PLP when in opposition. That party’s position differed markedly from that of the FNM in material and substantial ways.
What I and my party, the FNM, object to is the conclusion of special deals, conceived and sealed in secret, which afford benefits to one investor that are not available to other investors, foreign or Bahamian, on the same terms.
Finally, I and the FNM do not, agree that the government should declare the south west relatively higher, rock coast of Grand Bahama a “no build” zone effectively denying the residents of Williams Town, Lewis Yard, Hunters and Eight Mile Rock the right to rebuild their homes, while at the same time approving residential investments for low lying and sandy West End also situated along the southwest coast of Grand Bahama.
Source: The Tribune
