Dreamers, Visionaries and Workers
The Bahama Journal Editorial
The Bahamian people are not really asking for that much.
In the ultimate analysis, then, our people want systems that work; they want institutions that are up to the challenge of delivering the goods – and clearly they want to live in safe and secure communities.
In truth, the Bahamian people are not asking for too much.
But just as surely, little of this can or will be achieved if Bahamians continue to repose so little confidence in themselves and people who look like them.
This mindset must be purged sooner rather than later; this because there is no one better situated than the Bahamian for understanding his own hurts, his own delinquencies and thereafter his own set of responsibilities to the self and others.
Here we are ever optimistic that, a time will come when Bahamians in greater numbers will realize that, while some of them are called to lead in the political realm; some others in the Church and some others in business and the unions, are also so called.
In addition, there are some others – the dreamers, visionaries and workers – who also have their full parts to play in the unfolding drama that is nation-building in today’s nascent Bahamas.
That Bahamas - like a host of other small island developing states – is a work in progress.
Clearly, then, no one should pretend surprise when some things go awry; when mistakes are made and when those who lead stray far from some of their own windy rhetoric.
But for sure, The Bahamas does have a lot that it could be justly proud of; here whether the reference is made to some of the changes that have taken place in the political realm or for that matter in the world of business.
On occasion, we have sought to make and underscore our fervent belief that, Bahamians should be given a chance to come on over and build up their nation and its institutions; inclusive of those that have to do with the provision of vitally needed public goods such as health, safety and education.
And yet again, we have also sought to make the point that there is an urgent need for those who make the law and those who would carry out the law to recognize that Bahamians want, need and crave to live in a land where they are more than spectators looking in on the doings of those who are really large and in charge.
But for sure, even as we hold to these views, we are today absolutely convinced that there remains a large role for so-called foreigners to make in the orderly growth and development of these islands, rocks and cays.
Evidently, therefore, there is a large role that could and should be played by people like Sarkis Izmirlian who resides in Lyford Cay and who on more occasions that one suggested that, these islands have become home to him.
In support of this, Izmirlian not only continues to dream big dreams about the future viability of this nation’s economy, but has sought -with the Bahama Mar venture- to see to it that our beloved country and its people remains on the cutting edge of tourism in this region.
As we have already noted, this is one of the reasons for choosing him to be our Person of the Year.
This man has lived in the Bahamas for 20 years and considers the archipelago his home.
We also so believe.
When asked elsewhere in media for some explanation behind his vision for Cable Beach, Izmirlian is said to have noted that, that even after protracted delays, giving up on the Baha Mar project was never an option.
As he is to be quoted: "It's very simple, my dedication comes from my belief in the project. And so as the world moves forward with trepidation, we in The Bahamas move forward with confidence to create a project that will change the lives of Bahamians forever. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to move our tourism sector forward."
If things go according to plan, the Bahamian people writ large will be able to serve, earn and thereby find the resources necessary to help them fortify family life; nurture their communities; therefore helping to shore up and build the
Bahamian Nation.
Here –and for sure - many hands will make a burden light.
As we know so very well, people succeed when they work to see to it that other people succeed in realizing their visions or dreams.
And so, it is with our people as they struggle with the vicissitudes that come whenever seven years of drought set in.
Happily, while some despair, some others dare dream of the coming of a better day – and thereafter work to make it happen.
January 19, 2011
The Bahama Journal Editorial
An International Caribbean Online Log about the news and opinions in the Americas and World. This Caribbean Blog of global reach and appeal is maintained by Bahamian Blogger - Dennis Dames with all readers and subscribers in mind.
Showing posts with label Baha Mar project. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baha Mar project. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Baha Mar agreement/Labor issue: China putting the squeeze on The Bahamas; Your country may be next...
China putting the squeeze on The Bahamas; Your country may be next...
By Anthony L. Hall
The Bahamas is having a precedent-setting dispute with China over a development agreement that calls for Chinese men to comprise the vast majority of workers on a $2.5 billion project (Baha Mar) that China is funding.
(FYI: Baha Mar is to comprise six hotels with approximately 3,500 rooms and condominiums, a 100,000-sq-ft casino, 200,000-sq-ft of convention space, twenty acres of beach and water parks, an 18-hole golf course, and a 60,000-sq-ft retail village. Just what the already overdeveloped island of New Providence needs...)
Specifically, China is demanding that this small Caribbean nation issue permits for 8,150 foreign workers, which would amount to 71% of the labor force needed for this project; notwithstanding that The Bahamas is teeming with unemployed men (and women) who are willing and able to do the work.
Of course, for over a decade now, China has been buying up influence throughout the Caribbean to enable it to exercise its economic, political, and, perhaps, even military power to further its national interests without question... let alone challenge. And nothing demonstrated its modus operandi in this respect quite like the way it allegedly bribed (or attempted to bribe) every nation in the region to sever ties with Taiwan: almost all of them, including The Bahamas, duly complied.
But the leaders of every one of these nations knew, or should have known, that, sooner or later, China would seek to use its influence in ways that were inimical to their national interests. And, lest anyone thinks I’m making too much of this, here’s the alarm I felt compelled to sound (again) earlier this year -- in a February 19 commentary entitled World beware: China calling in (loan-sharking) debts. In this case, China was having a dispute with the most powerful nation on earth, the United States, over its relationship, not with Taiwan or any other country, but with a powerless Buddhist monk, the Dalai Lama:
“This episode should serve as a warning to all countries around the world that are not just lapping up China’s largesse, but are heralding it as a more worthy superpower than the United States. Because if the Chinese can spit such imperious and vindictive fire at the US over a relatively insignificant matter like [President Obama] meeting the Dalai Lama, just imagine what they would do to a less powerful country in a dispute over a truly significant matter.
“I anticipated that the Chinese would be every bit as arrogant in the use of their power as the Americans. But I never thought they would use it for such a petty cause. In point of fact here, in part, is how I admonished countries in the Caribbean and Latin America in this respect almost five years ago [in a February 22, 2005 commentary entitled “China buying political dominion”]:
‘What happens if China decides that it is in its strategic national interest to convert the container ports, factories, and chemical plants it has funded throughout the Caribbean into dual military and commercial use? Would these governments comply? Would they have any real choice? And when they do comply, would the US then blockade that island -- the way it blockaded Cuba during the missile crisis? Now, consider China making such strategic moves in Latin America where its purportedly benign Yuan diplomacy dwarfs its Caribbean operations. This new Cold War could then turn very hot indeed...’
“It clearly does not bode well that China has no compunctions about drawing moral and political equivalence between its beef with the US over the Dalai Lama and the US’s beef with it over internet espionage, unfair trade practices, and support for indicted war criminals like President Bashir of Sudan. Because irrational resentment in a regional menace like North Korea is one thing; in a global power like China it’s quite another.”
This brings me back to the dilemma in which The Bahamas now finds itself. To his credit, though, Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham seems determined not to sell out his own people quite as blithely as The Bahamas sold out the Taiwanese. For here’s the defiant note he sounded only this week:
"We told the China State Construction Engineering Corporation from the first time we saw them more than a year ago that it was not possible to have that number of foreign workers on a job site with the Bahamian content being so low. Nothing has changed. We've been telling them that for more than a year. It appears that some people either don't take us seriously or they apparently think that we are so desperate that we will do whatever we are asked to do. But our strength is not weakened." (The Nassau Guardian, October 20, 2010)
As we used to say in the schoolyard, “them is fighting words”. It’s just too bad that Ingraham’s principled stand is being undermined by media speculation in The Bahamas that he’s taking it, not to further the interests of the Bahamian people, but to preserve the veritable tourism monopoly now being enjoyed by another foreign developer, Kerzner International.
Never mind that Kerzner’s Atlantis resort happens to be the country’s largest private employer; or that the Baha Mar agreement is fraught with all kinds of other provisions that make a mockery of The Bahamas’s national interests.
More to the point, whatever personal benefits Ingraham may derive from his evidently cozy relationship with Kerzner, there’s no gainsaying the principle at issue; namely, that no matter the developer or financier, the percentage of local to foreign workers on all development projects should be at least 70:30; i.e., in favor of local workers, not the other way around.
It would be one thing if this untenable percentage of foreign workers that China is attempting to impose were limited to the construction period. But we Caribbean natives are now painfully aware that developers have enjoyed such adhesive leverage in negotiations with our government officials that provisions allowing them to stack permanent staff positions with mostly foreign workers as well have become rather boiler plate.
This is why Ingraham’s challenge to China is so precedent setting. And, as the title to this commentary indicates, it behooves all leaders in our region to support, and be prepared to emulate, the stand he’s taking: for together we stand, divided we fall.
In fact, since this is now a very public dispute, I urge regional leaders to publish an open letter of support to show solidarity with Ingraham when he addresses this labor issue with Chinese officials later this month, in China no less...
Finally, to those who may have thought that China would be a more benign hegemon than the US, I offer yet another instructive cliché: better the devil you know than the devil you don’t...
October 22, 2010
caribbeannewsnow
By Anthony L. Hall
The Bahamas is having a precedent-setting dispute with China over a development agreement that calls for Chinese men to comprise the vast majority of workers on a $2.5 billion project (Baha Mar) that China is funding.
(FYI: Baha Mar is to comprise six hotels with approximately 3,500 rooms and condominiums, a 100,000-sq-ft casino, 200,000-sq-ft of convention space, twenty acres of beach and water parks, an 18-hole golf course, and a 60,000-sq-ft retail village. Just what the already overdeveloped island of New Providence needs...)
Specifically, China is demanding that this small Caribbean nation issue permits for 8,150 foreign workers, which would amount to 71% of the labor force needed for this project; notwithstanding that The Bahamas is teeming with unemployed men (and women) who are willing and able to do the work.Of course, for over a decade now, China has been buying up influence throughout the Caribbean to enable it to exercise its economic, political, and, perhaps, even military power to further its national interests without question... let alone challenge. And nothing demonstrated its modus operandi in this respect quite like the way it allegedly bribed (or attempted to bribe) every nation in the region to sever ties with Taiwan: almost all of them, including The Bahamas, duly complied.
But the leaders of every one of these nations knew, or should have known, that, sooner or later, China would seek to use its influence in ways that were inimical to their national interests. And, lest anyone thinks I’m making too much of this, here’s the alarm I felt compelled to sound (again) earlier this year -- in a February 19 commentary entitled World beware: China calling in (loan-sharking) debts. In this case, China was having a dispute with the most powerful nation on earth, the United States, over its relationship, not with Taiwan or any other country, but with a powerless Buddhist monk, the Dalai Lama:
“This episode should serve as a warning to all countries around the world that are not just lapping up China’s largesse, but are heralding it as a more worthy superpower than the United States. Because if the Chinese can spit such imperious and vindictive fire at the US over a relatively insignificant matter like [President Obama] meeting the Dalai Lama, just imagine what they would do to a less powerful country in a dispute over a truly significant matter.
“I anticipated that the Chinese would be every bit as arrogant in the use of their power as the Americans. But I never thought they would use it for such a petty cause. In point of fact here, in part, is how I admonished countries in the Caribbean and Latin America in this respect almost five years ago [in a February 22, 2005 commentary entitled “China buying political dominion”]:
‘What happens if China decides that it is in its strategic national interest to convert the container ports, factories, and chemical plants it has funded throughout the Caribbean into dual military and commercial use? Would these governments comply? Would they have any real choice? And when they do comply, would the US then blockade that island -- the way it blockaded Cuba during the missile crisis? Now, consider China making such strategic moves in Latin America where its purportedly benign Yuan diplomacy dwarfs its Caribbean operations. This new Cold War could then turn very hot indeed...’
“It clearly does not bode well that China has no compunctions about drawing moral and political equivalence between its beef with the US over the Dalai Lama and the US’s beef with it over internet espionage, unfair trade practices, and support for indicted war criminals like President Bashir of Sudan. Because irrational resentment in a regional menace like North Korea is one thing; in a global power like China it’s quite another.”
This brings me back to the dilemma in which The Bahamas now finds itself. To his credit, though, Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham seems determined not to sell out his own people quite as blithely as The Bahamas sold out the Taiwanese. For here’s the defiant note he sounded only this week:
"We told the China State Construction Engineering Corporation from the first time we saw them more than a year ago that it was not possible to have that number of foreign workers on a job site with the Bahamian content being so low. Nothing has changed. We've been telling them that for more than a year. It appears that some people either don't take us seriously or they apparently think that we are so desperate that we will do whatever we are asked to do. But our strength is not weakened." (The Nassau Guardian, October 20, 2010)
As we used to say in the schoolyard, “them is fighting words”. It’s just too bad that Ingraham’s principled stand is being undermined by media speculation in The Bahamas that he’s taking it, not to further the interests of the Bahamian people, but to preserve the veritable tourism monopoly now being enjoyed by another foreign developer, Kerzner International.
Never mind that Kerzner’s Atlantis resort happens to be the country’s largest private employer; or that the Baha Mar agreement is fraught with all kinds of other provisions that make a mockery of The Bahamas’s national interests.
More to the point, whatever personal benefits Ingraham may derive from his evidently cozy relationship with Kerzner, there’s no gainsaying the principle at issue; namely, that no matter the developer or financier, the percentage of local to foreign workers on all development projects should be at least 70:30; i.e., in favor of local workers, not the other way around.
It would be one thing if this untenable percentage of foreign workers that China is attempting to impose were limited to the construction period. But we Caribbean natives are now painfully aware that developers have enjoyed such adhesive leverage in negotiations with our government officials that provisions allowing them to stack permanent staff positions with mostly foreign workers as well have become rather boiler plate.
This is why Ingraham’s challenge to China is so precedent setting. And, as the title to this commentary indicates, it behooves all leaders in our region to support, and be prepared to emulate, the stand he’s taking: for together we stand, divided we fall.
In fact, since this is now a very public dispute, I urge regional leaders to publish an open letter of support to show solidarity with Ingraham when he addresses this labor issue with Chinese officials later this month, in China no less...
Finally, to those who may have thought that China would be a more benign hegemon than the US, I offer yet another instructive cliché: better the devil you know than the devil you don’t...
October 22, 2010
caribbeannewsnow
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Bahamas Government plans resolution in Parliament on 5,000 Chinese workers to help construct the $2.6 billion Baha Mar project
Govt still planning vote on 5,000 Chinese workers
By TANEKA THOMPSON
Tribune Staff Reporter
tthompson@tribunemedia.net:
GOVERNMENT still plans to bring a resolution to Parliament prompting all members to vote for or against the work permit approvals of some 5,000 Chinese workers to help construct the $2.6 billion Baha Mar project, said National Security Minister Tommy Turnquest.
While the arrival of so many foreign workers in the country may be a bitter pill for some to swallow, Mr Turnquest said the long-term job opportunities and economic stimulus for Bahamians could be a big enough impetus to support the work permits.
"They propose to build six hotels providing 3,500 rooms, convention facilities, casinos, golf courses, a retail village. They propose to have I think it's 7,000 permanent jobs at the end and 3,300 temporary jobs during construction. So all of that will have to be factored in. It also has to be factored in that this is a period of high unemployment and that has to be taken into account.
"We're the government but we believe that members of Parliament who represent the people of the Bahamas ought to have a say in an unusual labour component," said Mr Turnquest, referring to the Progressive Liberal Party's opposition to the vote being brought to Parliament.
He added that although Baha Mar was given approval last month by the Chinese government for its redevelopment of Cable Beach it still has several conditions it must meet before its luxury project can begin. Mr Turnquest, who is also the leader of government business in the House of Assembly, declined to reveal those conditions when speaking to The Tribune earlier this week.
Chinese Ambassador Dingxian Hu is expected to present Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham with the official documents outlining the Chinese approval when he returns from China on August 18 or 19.
"The prime minister will meet with him then, when we expect to get the formal approval from the Chinese government. There are some conditions to the Chinese approval taking effect, from the Baha Mar's point of view.
"Once Baha Mar has fulfilled all its obligations the only question remains is if government agrees to provide work permits for Chinese workers," said Mr Turnquest.
There has been speculation in some quarters that Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham will not approve the deal even though it was green-lighted by the Chinese.
However, Mr Turnquest dispelled the conjecture saying the government will respect the deal the developers signed with the Christie administration before it was voted out of office in 2007.
"The government has agreed to honour the deal," he said.
According to the developers, Baha Mar will employ approximately 4,000 Bahamians over the life of the construction period, expected to last almost four years.
Once the resort is fully operational, approximately 98 per cent of the staff will be Bahamian.
August 09, 2010
tribune242
By TANEKA THOMPSON
Tribune Staff Reporter
tthompson@tribunemedia.net:
GOVERNMENT still plans to bring a resolution to Parliament prompting all members to vote for or against the work permit approvals of some 5,000 Chinese workers to help construct the $2.6 billion Baha Mar project, said National Security Minister Tommy Turnquest.
While the arrival of so many foreign workers in the country may be a bitter pill for some to swallow, Mr Turnquest said the long-term job opportunities and economic stimulus for Bahamians could be a big enough impetus to support the work permits.
"They propose to build six hotels providing 3,500 rooms, convention facilities, casinos, golf courses, a retail village. They propose to have I think it's 7,000 permanent jobs at the end and 3,300 temporary jobs during construction. So all of that will have to be factored in. It also has to be factored in that this is a period of high unemployment and that has to be taken into account.
"We're the government but we believe that members of Parliament who represent the people of the Bahamas ought to have a say in an unusual labour component," said Mr Turnquest, referring to the Progressive Liberal Party's opposition to the vote being brought to Parliament.
He added that although Baha Mar was given approval last month by the Chinese government for its redevelopment of Cable Beach it still has several conditions it must meet before its luxury project can begin. Mr Turnquest, who is also the leader of government business in the House of Assembly, declined to reveal those conditions when speaking to The Tribune earlier this week.
Chinese Ambassador Dingxian Hu is expected to present Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham with the official documents outlining the Chinese approval when he returns from China on August 18 or 19.
"The prime minister will meet with him then, when we expect to get the formal approval from the Chinese government. There are some conditions to the Chinese approval taking effect, from the Baha Mar's point of view.
"Once Baha Mar has fulfilled all its obligations the only question remains is if government agrees to provide work permits for Chinese workers," said Mr Turnquest.
There has been speculation in some quarters that Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham will not approve the deal even though it was green-lighted by the Chinese.
However, Mr Turnquest dispelled the conjecture saying the government will respect the deal the developers signed with the Christie administration before it was voted out of office in 2007.
"The government has agreed to honour the deal," he said.
According to the developers, Baha Mar will employ approximately 4,000 Bahamians over the life of the construction period, expected to last almost four years.
Once the resort is fully operational, approximately 98 per cent of the staff will be Bahamian.
August 09, 2010
tribune242
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)