NASSAU, BAHAMAS — While the ground-breaking for a multimillion-dollar cruise port and resort in Long Island on Monday marked the start of construction plans for significant development in the country, those more concerned about the sustainability of these deals say that it comes at a price to neighboring communities.
Environmentalist and Secretary of the Bahamas National Fisheries Association Paul Maillis said that he has spoken with a number of fishermen and residents in Long Island who are in support of and are grateful for the development which they expect to bring jobs to the islands’ suffering economy.
“I think this is what happens when you let a community become so desperately deprived of anything that they’re willing to sacrifice and they’re willing to concede for pennies, what what is really and truly owed to them, you know, so this is what happens, you put people in such a desperate state, they’re willing to make desperate decisions,” Maillis said.
He added that it’s up to lawmakers to put the proper framework in place to ensure that the Bahamian people receive substantial benefits from the projects.
“Well, I mean, at the end of the day, it’s the responsibility of people who are actually sitting at the negotiating table.
“[…]What are the profits at stake and how they can be involved? It’s really up to the people we’ve elected on our behalf who are educated, who are informed, who are in ability or in a position to leverage these people to act in our best interest,” Maillis stated.
The fisherman made it clear that he was not against development but believes that communities in many of the family islands have not been looked after for long periods of time, and so as locals look for jobs they tend to be interested in whatever becomes available to them.
“The people of Long Island could have been sold a beautiful story about how wonderful this development’s going to be, how much GDP growth that’s going to bring, how many tourists it’s going to bring to the island.
“You know, whether or not an airport, a proper airport, will be built, whether a proper road will be built, or is it just going to be one all-inclusive getaway spot where there need to be no roads out of it.
“And they can totally be isolated away from the rest of the island and basically only make a little utopia right there in south Long Island, there’s nobody else on the island able to access it for any reason.”
In order for more sustainable development, Maillis said as he sees it, the government needs to leverage deals with a number of built-in conditions that must be adhered to with consequences if the rules are not followed.
“First, they need to lease this land and the leases need to be conditional. If you do not fulfill the obligations that you promise, you will lose your lease.
“So there needs to be an inbuilt legal leverage mechanism, which means developers either by denying them the right to actually purchase the land and only the right to lease it for limited lease until you know they can demonstrate that they have all the resources, all the assets available to make this development happen,” he continued,
“Because how many times have developments been planned and let these foreign entities buy up thousands of acres of Bahamian land and then this development is canceled and they ending up owning all of this Bahamian land crown, land […] Why is that allowed that you can just come in and buy all this crown land, basically holding it hostage.”
Most major resorts employ many Bahamians with almost half the population employed directly in the tourism sector. Maillis said that while he also supports jobs for Bahamians he’d like to see more working in higher positions in the tourism industry.
“I’d like to see more Bahamian managers and these and these they always bring in big-time bar managers. They pay them for the house and the sky and give them all the benefits in the world without having offered those same opportunities to qualified Bahamian operators in some of these big resorts that are operating right now.
“Where is the attempt to draw some of these qualified Bahamians from some of these other places to run these major operations?
“So it’s not just minimum wage workers benefiting, it’s the high skilled managerial, legal, financial staff that are coming to operate use facilities, that’s what I really would like to see,” Maillis said.
Loading ...
