NASSAU, Bahamas — The COVID-19 pandemic is “the last opportunity to resurrect Freeport” and create a platform for the Bahamian economy’s “resurgence”, an outspoken QC argued yesterday, The Tribune, one of The Bahamas’ leading newspapers, reported on May 12, in an article written by Tribune Business Editor Neil Hartnell.
Fred Smith, QC, the Callenders & Co attorney and partner, told Tribune Business that reviving an infrastructure designed to support 300,000 people was the “silver lining” amid the economic and health crisis caused by COVID-19.
With the government desperate for ideas on how the economy and foreign exchange reserves can rebound in tourism’s absence, Mr Smith voiced disappointment that just one person from Grand Bahama — local Chamber of Commerce president, Greg Laroda — was included on the government’s recently announced Economic Recovery Committee.
Warning that time was running out to exploit the economic potential of a city that he branded “the Venice of the Caribbean”, due to its multiple canals and waterways, he said successive governments and Cabinet ministers had all failed to appreciate what Freeport is “serving up on a silver platter.”
“Every pandemic has a silver lining,” Mr Smith told The Tribune, “and for The Bahamas that is the opportunity to take advantage of the infrastructure that is lying fallow and, unfortunately, disintegrating, in Freeport. I know the government has established this ambitious Economic Recovery Committee, but it is relatively thin on persons from Freeport and Grand Bahama with one representative. I think that given the post-Dorian and post-COVID environment, it presents the government with one more — and, I think, last — opportunity to take a bold step to not only resurrect Freeport’s economy but inject a long-term resurgence into the Bahamian economy.”
Mr Smith argued that the Hawksbill Creek Agreement — with its framework of investment incentives, coupled with Freeport’s status as a ‘free port’ and proximity to Florida and the US east coast — provided a strong foundation on which The Bahamas could diversify and rebuild its economy if the Government were to move away from its Nassau-centric approach.
“Regrettably, few — if any — Cabinet ministers and MPs have any real appreciation for the scale of the investment that has accrued, and infrastructure that has been lying dormant in Freeport from the late 1970s and early 1980s,” he added. “I don’t know how many of them have taken a boat tour through the Lucayan Waterway or the other canal systems that exist — the Bell Channel, Fortune Bay, Silver Cove and Bahama Reef — just to name a few. Freeport is the Venice of the Caribbean. See the entire Tribune article at http://www.tribune242.com/news/2020/may/12/covid-19s-last-chance-freeports-resurrection/?news&fbclid=IwAR0j-nsNaWtsTJLC_GdFECgXeRkNUn82ai1xXn3iBVgxPRNT_VTO54ngA0g
