LEADERS of 28 bands have "united" to form the Bahamas Carnival Band Owners Association (BCBOA).

FOREIGN Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell said the Immigration (Amendment) Bill 2015 tabled in Parliament on Wednesday to grant resident belonger permits was not necessary to support the government's newly implemented and controversial restrictions.

Baha Mar said in a statement yesterday it entered into its heads of agreement with the government in 2011 in good faith "and the terms are quite clear". Baha Mar said the government is trying to change the agreement and it called upon the government to live up to the agreement as it relates to its share of payment for the rerouted West Bay Street and related infrastructure. The resort development company was clearly responding to Deputy Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis, who said in the House of Assembly on Wednesday that the Baha Mar deal was "poorly negotiated". Davis also accused Baha Mar of being uncooperative in the negotiations to settle how much the government owes Baha Mar to cover its portion of the road work.

In its statement yesterday, Baha Mar said it has been engaged in ongoing discussions with the government for quite some time regarding the reimbursement for the JFK Drive connector road, the new West Bay Street, and associated public infrastructure, including landscaping, signage, lighting, footpaths, jogging trails and other amenities. The statement says that under Baha Mar's formal and restated heads of agreement signed with the government in 2011, Baha Mar agreed to pay the entire cost of the works, and the government agreed to reimburse Baha Mar for $43.5 million for the West Bay Street improvements and $2.8 million for the cost of the JFK connector, for a total of $48.1 million.

Under the agreement, the reimbursement from the government came due when the project's superstructure was constructed 100 feet above grade, which occurred in September 2012, the company said.

"Now the government is, in essence, trying to change the contract after the fact," Baha Mar said. "The heads of agreement states that if the cost of these works were less than $70 million, Baha Mar and the government would split the costs evenly. If the overall costs of these improvements exceeded $70 million -- which they did -- the formal agreement calls for the government to pay $48.1 million.

"We entered into the 2011 heads of agreement with the government in good faith, and the terms are quite clear. It's not a matter for interpretation and we expect the government of the Bahamas to honor its contractual obligations."

The government paid Baha Mar $30 million last year, but has not made any further payments since, The Nassau Guardian understands. Davis said Baha Mar is seeking a further $19.7 million.

"Two reasons can be given for the protracted road to settlement of this issue," he said. "The first is that Baha Mar in my view has not been cooperative in this process. There is no doubt that a greater amount of due diligence is required for settlement of the accounting. This includes independent verification of monies paid to contractors for works directly related to the road work and the scope as defined within the agreement.

"Baha Mar, though, has not been forthcoming with very specific information requests and has not attended agreed meetings. There are exchanges of correspondence that will back up these statements. The second reason is the fact that the provisions that provided for the testing of sums at industry standard in the original heads of agreement of 2006 were removed when the heads was renegotiated."

He said, "When that was negotiated and signed off the then administration didn't think that we should test the sums that were going to be spent against industry standard so they took that clause out. Given this result, it can only be concluded that this was a poorly negotiated deal for Bahamians, but we commit to ensuring that we get full and justifiable value for any monies that are to be paid once it is in the scope defined by the agreement."

Baha Mar Chairman Sarkis Izmirlian said recently he was not happy with the pace of the negotiations.
Prime Minister Perry Christie told The Nassau Guardian it appears the matter is headed to arbitration.
Baha Mar is set to open next month.

Dear Editor,

It is startling to see the level of contempt shown nowadays for diplomacy. Oh, less and less respect being displayed for the God-given right of nations to conduct their own affairs and to be able to do so in the manner laid out in the laws of the country. Whenever I travel to the United States and before I am received there, another sovereign country, I respect their laws and the execution of those precepts, or articles being enforced there. I am able to do so, because I presented valid or legal travel documentation, approved by the state.

Ever mindful while there of where I am at, as a consequence, I conduct myself as the decent tourist that I am, respecting their rights to enforce the laws of that land. Incidentally though, if the duration of my stay is three days for example, by day two, I am usually ready to return home - eager and can't wait at that. Because there is no place like home, no place I'd rather be, than in Nassau down by the sea.

Editor, there is, in any issue, a common sense approach, and many times the answers are not very far away. If the bare-truth is sought the right answers will be found just below the skin as it were, easily retrievable.

As I think about it, I am reminded of all this talk in the media and other countries, about people being born in The Bahamas. In some cases, that they lived here all of their natural lives and even though they might have been the perpetrators of breaches of the immigration laws, the laws enshrined in The Bahamas' Constitution, in some circles, there are those who would rather these offenses by the violators of the law not be tried or dealt with.

Now wait a minute, not very long ago, the Americans deported over 1,000 people from their country to The Bahamas. Many of them were born in the United States to immigrant parents, we suspect, and others of them arrived there as children, but they were raised in America and perfected the adoption of their criminal crafts there. Spent their jail sentences there, these socially delinquent convicts fair to say, had not been rehabilitated, during the process over there.

We in The Bahamas bore no blame for their criminality, their lives of crime in the United States, yet, they were dumped on our shores, all 1,000 plus of them. No one said anything about this in the news media, both locally and abroad.
These people, many of them I see daily, and there is something quite peculiar about them - while they may be of the black race, there is no question that they do not speak like me, like us. They dress differently; many of them are on the daily hustle, and the same old obscenities, the drinking at neighborhood bars and God knows what else, are their mainstay, etc.

What am I saying? I think that while we may claim that a person is a Bahamian, a country other than The Bahamas was responsible for their downfall, their upbringing and that country, I believe, should shoulder its responsibility, and not drop this load off on our doorstep. There must be responsibility for how you allowed them to behave in your land and to go unchecked, rather than intervene at a time when corrections may have worked. It is unfair to now force the Bahamas government to have to cope with these foreigners and their poor social habits.

The definition of the word "responsibility" in the Oxford large-print dictionary, reads as follows:

1. Legally or morally obliged to take care of something or to carry out a duty; 2. Having to account for one's actions; you will be responsible to the president himself. 3. Capable of rational conduct; trustworthy; a responsible person. 4. Involving important duties; a responsible position. 5. Being the cause of something; the plague was responsible for many deaths.

Minister of Immigration Fred Mitchell, the Bahamian people appreciate you and love the good job that you are doing. We also applaud the efforts of the Department of Immigration and we trust that God in his infinite wisdom will reveal his shore-up measures, apropos your department.

I wonder if, when something is the law of the land and is pursued in the execution of duty by law enforcement, be they Department of Immigration, or others, how obstruction fits? And international posturing, how does that fit? If it does, I wonder.

Finally, editor: the detention center. We are a small country, with economic and financial constraints. As such, we are only able to do what these meager resources allow us to do.

It is true that as human beings, we should occupy surroundings that are livable, and we are sympathetic about the economic conditions in some other countries. We also know it is only natural to want to venture elsewhere, in the face of hardship, (once colonizers, some of the major countries carry the mother-tongue of some of the poor nations).

The Republic of Haiti is an example and the mother-tongue of this country comes from the Republic of France, located in South West Europe and the world's fourth largest industrialized power, after U.S., Japan and Germany. A country with population numbers of well over 60,000,000 people, and she essentially must step up to the plate, and help to rescue Haiti's people, as a matter of obligation.

The Bahamian people only ask that you respect our territory, as we do yours. If you want to come, there are rules. The same way, if I want to go to another's country, there are rules. Is that too much to ask?

If you on the other hand, do not wish to abide by Bahamian rules made to protect its territory, then what you find, when you arrive, is what you must live with. It is what we have and we did not ask you to come. Simply, collateral damage will be meted out and it was by your own choosing that you arrived in The Bahamas illegally and end up at the Detention Centre, which will ensure your one way ticket back to your homeland.

There seems to be more focus on forcing The Bahamas to do things for people coming here, but no interest in demanding that the Republic of France account, the mother of the Republic of Haiti. We have done enough for Haiti, Fred Smith. Perhaps you ought to put more pressure on actual Caribbean countries to get together and do for their sister country Haiti.

The Bahamas as I can recall from my geography classes, is located in the North Atlantic Ocean, along with the country Bermuda, so suffice it to say, who then should be more obligated to dispense this help? If you were to check the numbers per country from the Caribbean, you might be surprised that we harbor more of their people than any other country.

As for these conventions that politicians have signed onto, blind-folded it seemed, I would think that very many of them are not in the best interest of The Bahamas. The people's suggestion to the government is that those ones that are not in our best interest, we ought to de-sign from, if that is a word. Because you cannot have a group, and a foreign one, giving ultimatums to our democratically elected Bahamian Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) government, "that it has two weeks to comply with making adjustments at the detention centre" ... or else? I do not speak to my adult children, this way.

This heavy-handedness, God has said he has a problem with. He gave every country the right to its sovereignty and the right of its citizens to choose. He also gave all of humanity the right to choose, He God, or the devil.

God is the only absolute sovereign authority on Earth. Anything else is a counterfeit. To God, is all the glory, for great things he has done, is doing and will continue to do, even when man in the flesh is no more. He will continue to be the Almighty Creator, Elohim-Hebrew for God.

- Frank Gilbert