COMMENTARY: BY OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 15, 2020 – Fred Smith, QC, the noted Bahamian attorney who is a Senior Partner of Callenders & Co, offered some excellent suggestions to the government of The Bahamas earlier this week on the best approach to restoring the economic health of The Bahamas in the aftermath of the destructive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economies of countries around the world.
In an interview with Neil Hartnell, Business Editor of The Tribune, Smith noted that reviving an infrastructure designed to support 300,000 people was the “silver lining” amid the economic and health crisis caused by COVID-19.
He was referring, of course, to the “economic potential” of Freeport, Grand Bahama, which he referred to as “the Venice of the Caribbean,” with its multiple canals and waterways.
“Every pandemic has a silver lining and for The Bahamas that is the opportunity to take advantage of the infrastructure that is lying fallow and, unfortunately, disintegrating, in Freeport,” Mr. Smith was quoted as saying. “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.”
Mr. Smith’s assessment of Freeport’s potential to be the nucleus for restoring The Bahamas’ economic health in many respects is based on the fact that as the Managing Partner of Callenders & Co Freeport Chambers, he has done extensive legal work for the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA), especially during the strong lobbying campaign mounted by the late Edward St George, the dynamic and visionary chairman of the GBPA), in 2001 to get approval for an LNG re-gasification facility in Grand Bahama.
The then Free National Movement (FNM) government – headed by Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham — approved, in principle, the construction and operation of an LNG re-gasification facility in Grand Bahama, and even though Ingraham and the FNM lost the May 2, 2002 general election, the new Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) government, led by Prime Minister Perry Christie, also approved the proposed LNG project. It was envisaged that the natural gas would be pumped via a pipeline from a location in Freeport Harbour to Florida, which at the time was facing a serious energy crisis.
Surely, Mr. St. George’s efforts would have been successful if it were not for strong opposition from environmental groups, whose dogged, fear-mongering campaign resulted in the two LNG conglomerates seeking to establish the LNG pipeline to Florida abandoning their proposals.
Obviously, in describing Freeport as “the Venice of the Caribbean,” Mr. Smith’s focus was on tourism still being the main economic engine for Freeport’s economy, but given the widely held consensus that the COVID-19 pandemic has created some major problems for tourism-based economies over the next several years, this may be the perfect time for the government of The Bahamas to give its full support to GBPA to invest some time and resources into the original goals set by Wallace Groves when he signed the Hawksbill Creek Agreement on August 4, 1955, to develop acreages of Crown Land into what is now Freeport.
Tourism was not even remotely a part of what Mr. Groves had in mind for Freeport. His initial plan called for the establishment of an industrial complex, and in its early stages, Freeport did indeed make tremendous developmental strides in this area, but things were not moving as fast and as profitably as Mr. Groves had envisaged.
It is not by accident that Mr. Groves shifted the trajectory of Freeport’s development towards tourism. Mr. Groves’ lawyer at the time was Sir Stafford Sands, head of the Development Board, which was responsible for promoting tourism to The Bahamas. Sir Stafford used his considerable influence among the Bay Street Boys to get the Executive Council to agree to grant what was called a Certificate of Exemption to introduce major casino gambling in The Bahamas, with the Monte Carlo Casino being the first one in Freeport.
Casino gambling introduced a financial boom in Freeport. During those some “glory years,” the International Bazaar in downtown Freeport was alive with excitement, offering visitors the option of having a drink in a “Pub” in London, a “Bistro” in Paris or a “Biergarten” in Berlin — given the fact that replicas of such establishments from major cities around the world made the International Bazaar a popular attraction for visitors to Grand Bahama.
Those were the years when one was able to go nightclub-hopping in Freeport and be entertained by very talented Bahamian entertainers like Sonny Johnson, Wendell Stuart, Jay Mitchell and Marvin Henfield – just to name a few of the outstanding Bahamian singers who with a little bit of luck were talented enough to become international stars.
There was widespread optimism that Freeport would soon be well on the road to returning to some semblance of yesteryear touristically when the government purchased the Grand Lucayan Resort, but Hurricane Dorian’s destructive rampage across Grand Bahama and Abaco during the first week of September 2019 derailed hopes of that happening anytime soon, and COVID-19 sort of confirmed that it definitely will not be anytime in the near future.
This is all the more reason why the government should encourage the Executive Team at GBPA — headed by Sarah St. George as Acting Chairman and Ian Rolle as President — to display some ingenuity in encouraging industrial investors to establish businesses in Freeport. Sarah is the daughter of the late Edward St. George, who routinely displayed excellent business skills that resulted in the tremendous success the GBPA enjoyed under his leadership. So based on the “chip off the old block” axiom, she clearly is in the right place at the right time to follow through on the suggestions made by Fred Smith.
