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‘WHERE ARE OUR WAGES?’

By LEANDRA ROLLE Tribune Staff Reporter lrolle@tribunemedia.net FORMER employees of the shuttered Club Land’Or resort on Paradise Island claim they are owed thousands of dollars in unpaid wages, severance pay and other benefits despite long years of dedicated service before the resort’s closure in 2020.

Some former employees claim they are owed up to as much as $100,000, while others allege being owed some $50,000 in back pay.

The situation has sparked anger among the workers, with one of them claiming to have done “every single thing under the sun” without success to get the matter resolved.

“We wasn’t getting pay,” said Raymond Mackey yesterday. “They paid us some weeks and wouldn’t pay us the next week and so the money would add up. Sometimes you would go a whole month without getting pay. Some of us they owe like 50 grand. At least I could talk for myself and I was working there for about 19 years.”

When contacted for comment yesterday, Labour Director Robert Farquharson suggested the reason behind the delayed payments was due to the property going bankrupt.

SEE PAGE THREE

THE CLUB Land’or property yesterday.

Photo: Donavan McIntosh/Tribune Staff

COMPANY ACCUSED OF MAN DEAD, ANOTHER ROLE IN BABY’S DEATH SHOT IN THE HEAD

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

AN EX-FAMILY Guardian executive is alleging the insurer’s actions helped cause her unborn baby’s death - and has lost a battle to have a covert recording of her meeting with the firm’s president admitted as evidence.

Alana Major is suing the BISX-listed insurer for alleged “negligence and breach of statutory duty” over how it handled her request to work from

home due to the difficult pregnancy that she was enduring. Justice Klein’s judgment revealed that she lost the unborn child that same night after the meeting with Glen Ritchie.

Justice Loren Klein ruled Mrs Major’s “clandestine” taping of her meeting with Mr Ritchie did not fall under the Interception of Communications Act “exceptions” that permit the details of private conversations to be published or communicated publicly.

FULL STORY - SEE BUSINESS

By EARYEL BOWLEG Tribune Staff Reporter ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

A MAN has died and another is in hospital being treated for a gunshot wound to the head after a shooting incident on Monday night.

Police press liaison Superintendent Audley Peters said police received a report after 9pm of a shooting on Seventh Street.

“It was reported that two males were shot,” Mr Peters told The Tribune. “One was taken to the hospital. He’s

presently listed as stable.

The other died on scene.”

Mr Peters said police were still trying to piece together some of the details.

“We don’t know who did it, how did it happen because the persons who reported to us heard a sound, came outside and found the persons.”

Supt Peters told this newspaper that he received reports that the surviving man had been shot in his head.

SEE PAGE SEVEN

NURSES FILE DISPUTE OVER SAFETY

By EARYEL BOWLEG Tribune Staff Reporter ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Nurses Union has filed a trade dispute against the Public Hospitals Authority and Department of Public Health.

BNU president Amancha Williams told The Tribune yesterday that safety issues in the work environment along with a failure to communicate, failure to pay on

AMANCHA WILLIAMS time and a failure to finalise an industrial agreement, sparked the union’s decision to file the dispute.

Ms Williams also noted mould and a number of air conditioners malfunctioning in various areas.

She said Princess Margaret Hospital’s Eye Ward had to be shut down due to problems related to those issues.

She added that there were five nurses who had electrical shock between late last year to early this year and there were others SEE PAGE FIVE

Nassau & Bahama Islands’ Leading Newspaper

ALICIA WALLACE: HOW YOU CAN MAKE MOTHER’S DAY MAGICAL

- SEE PAGE EIGHT

PAGE 2, Wednesday, May 4, 2022

THE TRIBUNE

FREEDOM To Read Inc, founder Susy Siel showing books before she catalogs them and, left, children in Eleuthera at one of the libraries she built.

TURNING DERELICTS INTO LIBRARIES A FORMER elementary school teacher and librarian from Wisconsin, United States, has transformed 12 dilapidated buildings into

modern working libraries and community centres for residents in Eleuthera.

Susy Siel and her organisation, Freedom To Read

Incorporated, are helping students who suffered learning deficits during the pandemic to get back on track.

So far Ms Siel and Freedom to Read have equipped the 12 libraries with over 150 computers and more than 40,000 books.

“We are very excited about the possibilities we have with the libraries,” said Ms Siel. “We have gotten computers and catalogued tens of thousands of books and created a system to connect the libraries to each other.

“As you know, Eleuthera is a long island with settlements every several miles, so outside of the historic Haynes Library in Governor’s Harbour and Sir George Roberts Library on Harbour Island, there weren’t a lot of modern literacy and information options.”

Ms Siel first became aware of Eleuthera in the 1960s when her parents, who were private pilots, took her and her sisters there, and they grew up considering locals as extended family members.

She went from taking books along with her to read on the beach to establishing small libraries in

settlement after settlement.

“We lived in Michigan back then and flew back and forth to Eleuthera several times a year for extended stays. When our parents were busy with their work, they would drop us to Mildred and Emmanuel Thompson in Gregory Town. They really were our adopted family,” Ms Siel fondly recalled. “Most times we really didn’t want to go back home after being with the Thompsons and running around the yard chasing chickens and goats and going to the beach.

“Our family name is Beach so it’s kind of interesting when you think about it because here I am, back at the beach now living full-time in Eleuthera, Bahamas, after growing up and having a career in the US.” After 27 years of teaching and being a librarian in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Ms Siel traded in snow commutes for water ferry and golf cart commutes and has gone beyond curating books to creating careers for Eleutherans, equipping

some who only have a high school diploma with the skills of seasoned librarians.

“What they are learning now took me years to learn,” said Ms Siel of the librarians. “Our mission is to change people’s lives through free access to literacy.

“I want the libraries to be a vibrant, engaging and motivating place for kids to learn and love. I truly value the power of literacy and education in terms of what it can produce for future leaders in The Bahamas.

It costs Ms Siel and her board $340,000 to run the organisation and they have established partnerships with Follett School Solutions from Illinois.

She has also partnered with other like-minded non-profit agencies in The Bahamas, specifically in Eleuthera, especially with regards to construction and cleaning. Ms Siel also does her best to secure grants, which help with shipping books and computers, renovations and professional development for the library staff.

THE TRIBUNE

Wednesday, May 4, 2022, PAGE 3

‘Where are our wages?’ from page one

However, he said his department was seeking to bring resolution to the situation after receiving several informal complaints from former employees of the resort.

He said: “The Department of Labour is aware of an ongoing situation where the former employees of Club Land’Or are owed severance packages because the club has been closed for some time. No formal trade dispute has been filed at the Department of Labour.”

“However, the Department of Labour is aware and we have been involved in discussions and the discussions are ongoing. The situation is the owners of the hotel, it’s a bankruptcy

situation we are advised and discussions are well underway in having the matter resolved.”

However, according to one redundant worker, their cries continue fall on deaf ears.

“We have done every single thing under the sun,” Audrey Saunders recently told The Tribune. “We are no longer represented by the union, nothing to do with the staff’s ability to pay because this stinking company Club Land’Or was taking money out of our pay and not paying the union.

“The union ceased to represent us. You can’t treat workers in this country this way so right now, we have no voice. I am one voice and in this mad country in

The Bahamas if you don’t have someone backing you, dog eat your lunch. I am tired because it’s madness.”

Ms Saunders continued: “A few weeks ago, I spoke to Mr Farquharson and when I spoke to Mr Farquharson, he said to me that it’s no longer a labour issue.

This is a mess in the country and that time they ain’t telling the staff nothing.

“Everyone ignoring us like we’re the plague. Potcake is get treated better than us. He said to me this was no longer a labour issue, it was a legal issue and that an agreement was signed for the sale of the company or business but he’s not in a position to give me any answers... so what do you want me to do. You trying to tell me you have

no answers to give a group of people who is dismissed from 2020 and not receiving any kind of financial assistance. What do y’all want us to do?”

Asked about those claims yesterday, Mr Farquharson responded: “There’s a situation with bankruptcy and bankruptcy is addressed to the legal system in the Bahamas so the bankruptcy doesn’t come before us. So, as I indicated as a result of the complaints, some informal complaints that we had, we undertook an investigation to ascertain what the facts are and I indicated that the hotel has been closed for some time and the employees are owed some significant earned pay, vacation pay as well as redundancy pay. We have

intervened with the owners in an effort to resolve the situation and the matter is ongoing.”

The Paradise Island resort has been a troubled property for many years, with its financial difficulties making headlines several times.

This newspaper has also previously reported workers’ complaints about outstanding wages over the years.

“Since 2012, things were going downhill,” said one worker who asked to be anonymous. “On a weekly basis, at the last minute, they say you’re not going to get pay today because there’s no money and there was a lot of back and forth and you bending over backwards and you working.

“It was one of the things that we had to encounter and ever since it was going downhill, at the end of the day they had an attitude with you when you asked for your monies. So, that wasn’t sitting well with all of us. When it was during the COVID, many met and we thought the general manager would’ve been there to say what is what, but he didn’t see the need to speak to us.”

Workers say they have been told monies would be paid when the property is sold. However, some said they are unable to wait until then, citing financial difficulties.

“Banks are not people friendly. Landlords are not people friendly,” Ms Saunders said.

BNT ‘monitoring’ Disney work at Lighthouse Point

THE VIEW at Lighthouse Point.

By PAVEL BAILEY BAHAMAS National Trust director Eric Carey said the BNT continues to monitor Disney’s construction works at Lighthouse Point to ensure environmental safety.

In an interview with The Tribune, Mr Carey said the BNT wants to ensure the work is in accordance with environmental safety regulations.

While Mr Carey acknowledged that to Disney’s credit they had put a lot of effort into ensuring they had a credible Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), he said the BNT and other national environmental bodies carefully reviewed their proposal to ensure its sincerity.

“From what I’ve read I would say that Disney put

Main photo: Barefoot Marketing a lot of effort into making sure that they had a credible EIA, credible Environmental Management Plan (EMP),” Mr Carey recently told The Tribune. I think they were concerned about their brand, they didn’t want it to appear that they wanted to make any shortcuts and so they produced a quality document. We all reviewed it. We gave basic comments, but in the end the government of The Bahamas determined that the environmental impact assessment was done in accordance with law and the new regulations.”

The BNT director said further that his organisation plans to meet with Disney and its environmental manager in the coming weeks to share plans for implementing the government approved EMP. Mr Carey added that the

environmental footprint of the Lighthouse Point project was well below that of other developments in the nation and that similar cruise developments have nearly tripled the estimated impact.

“Once we meet with them we are also going to, I want to see what their real footprint is. From what we’ve seen, the footprint on the land itself is way below what is typical of a lot of other developments in the country. Certainly other cruise destinations have had 60 percent or 70 percent impact or footprint. Disney seems to be less than 25 percent and they are giving back nearly 200 acres to the government of The Bahamas for lands to be protected in conservation.”

This comes after last week’s announcement by Disney’s regional public

POLICE HUNT MAN IN MURDER PROBE

By DENISE MAYCOCK Tribune Freeport Reporter dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

GRAND Bahama Police are searching for a man who is wanted for questioning in connection with a murder investigation.

An all points bulletin has been issued for Jamal Jerome Chatelain, 33, of No 110 Watergate Drive. He is about five feet, eight inches tall of medium build, and weighs about 130 pounds. He is of medium brown complexion with dark brown eyes, and dreadlocks.

Police are warning that Chatelain is considered armed and dangerous and should be approached with extreme caution. People are asked to call police at 3521919, 350-3106/9, 350-3014, or 911.

JAMAL JEROME CHATELAIN

BNT executive director Eric Carey.

Photo: Donavan McIntosh/ Tribune Staff affairs director Joey Gaskin who said that the development’s ‘built’ footprint has currently been reduced from 20 percent to 16 percent of Lighthouse Point’s total land.

In addition to planning to hire over 300 construction workers, with a largely Bahamian workforce, Disney hopes to “create sustainable economic opportunities” and as such donated the remaining $6.29m worth of 190 acre land to the government.

In addressing environmentalists’ ongoing concern about the project, while Carey had also wished that the competing National Park bid won out over Disney, he said that it would be nearly impossible to halt construction at this point.

As such Carey intends to carefully monitor Disney’s development on Eleuthera so that he can guarantee that they actually stick to the Environmental Management Plan.

“So I’m sure that all of us wanted to see the alternate option, which was

a National park with no cruise ship. It was private land, they acquired it, they went through the process and so now as an environmentalist one is left to either accept it or to continue fighting. The only way to fight that now is through impossible legal battles and certainly the National Trust is going down that angle”, Carey said.

“We will likely take the path of meeting with the developer, seeing what their plans are, trying to make sure that they are sticking to the details of the Environmental Management Plan and that they, as far as what they are required to do by the departing of environmental protection, that they actually stick to that and that they carry out the EMP to the same level and degree that was put into their comprehensive EIA.”

PAGE 4, Wednesday, May 4, 2022

THE TRIBUNE

THE URBAN Renewal Commission press conference yesterday. Front, from left, Bishop Arthur Evans, assistant chairman of Urban Renewal Commission, Arthur Johnson, consultant, State Minister of Social Services and Urban Development Lisa Rahming, deputy chairman Charlie Major, Charron Penn, project manager, back, Wendell Smith, inspector, Romeo Josey, assistant project manager, Brian Collins, inspector, and Stephan Beneby, small home inspector.

Photo: Donavan McIntosh/Tribune Staff

Home repairs initiative is launched by Urban Renewal

By LEANDRA ROLLE Tribune Staff Reporter lrolle@tribunemedia.net URBAN Renewal has launched a new home repair initiative in response to hundreds of homeowners who are hurting and in need of restoration of the houses in which they live.

State Minister of Social Services and Urban

Development Lisa Rahming announced the programme during a press conference at Urban Renewal yesterday.

She said some $2.6m is earmarked for the initiative, which is scheduled to continue over the next two months.

“Today is the launch of Urban Renewal revolutionised small home repairs

project,” Ms Rahming said during the launch.

“We wanted to ensure that the wider Bahamas, and not only New Providence, but our Family of Islands, which are Eleuthera, Long Island, Exuma, Cat Island and all the islands, letting them know that we are now commencing our home repairs under the Davis-Cooper

administration.

“Thus far, we have hundreds of homes before us.

Hundreds of applications where persons would’ve come in and they’re crying out for help and more importantly, why we saw this as so important to start now is because so many persons have lost their jobs.”

Given the significant economic hardship experienced by many, Ms Rahming said the government has decided to expand the programme this year and will be doing more than just roofing repairs.

She also revealed that an independent committee has been formed to assist with the selection process, which she said will be fair and unbiased.

“We have moved beyond just the roofing repair as the last administration did,” she said. “During our move about in the community, we have inspected many homes and we have found out that not only roofs need to be repaired, some people don’t have bathrooms. Certain places are in disrepair. Some people don’t have running water.

It’s so much that’s not in place, so the other need is that we saw that (there is) urgency to do this now with the hurricane season fast approaching.”

“Can you imagine persons who have lost their jobs? They don’t have a

dollar to fix their roof and what they’re thinking right now and we have decided in our minds and policy mandate that we’re going to revitalise communities and so you would see over the next course of the two months, we have some $2.6m that we want to inject into the islands New Providence, Grand Bahama and the Family of Islands. We’re going to do that with what is left in the budget and, of course, as the new budget climax, we will even be doing more and so we’re also asking for persons to be patient with us as we go through this process.”

As for who will be able to qualify, Stephen Dean, chairman of Urban Renewal Commission, said a number of important factors will be looked at.

He said: “Once they apply, we have someone go there to examine and look at the repairs and we will take the process from there, but they must verify that they own the property because we have had experiences in the past where properties were done and the next thing, the landlord came and put up the rent or put the people out so we have taken every precaution. We have learned from our mistakes.”

The former senior assistant commissioner also gave assurances that officials will be closely monitoring

the process to ensure that repairs are completed in a timely and efficient manner.

“We are trying to hit every island and we are going as far as Mayaguana.

People out there are saying they’re having issues. Inaguans are saying they are having issues. So, we are going to strategically look at it and try our best to be as prudent and as vigilant for those persons who might be unscrupulous and you know with my background, I gone try (to) use some of that,” he added.

Officials were unable to say how many homes are targeted to be repaired in the first cycle.

However, all are encouraged to apply at one of the Urban Renewal’s offices.

“No one person is touching any one application,” said Bishop Arthur Evans, assistant chairman of URC. “There is a process here and so the application will come to the committee as two separate committees are dealing with each application. Checks and balances are going to be provided where we look through these things and we help our people. So, it has nothing to do with whether or not it’s Farm Road or Gambier. It doesn’t matter. Once we get the application, we see that as our ability to help our people so come to any Urban Renewal Centre and we will facilitate your application.”

CONSULTANTS HIRED FOR COUNCIL CONSULTATION

By RASHAD ROLLE Tribune Senior Reporter rrolle@tribunemedia.net THE government has hired consultants to help redraft the Local Government Act to give more power to Family Island councils, including greater ability to raise revenue.

This, according to Agriculture and Marine Resources Minister Clay Sweeting yesterday, who said the local government regime needed a lot of change.

Mr Sweeting made the comments ahead of a Cabinet meeting yesterday.

“Local government in the Family Islands is lacking,” Mr Sweeting told reporters.

“There are a lot of things that we need to change.

We have had two consultants that are looking at the Local Government Act and how we can help raise the bar in local government in the Family Islands because they just become a holding fund to pay salaries and regular payments in the Family Islands and not really be transformative in that regard.

“So, currently we’re working on enhancing the experience in the Family

Islands and then once that is done then we’ll look at other means as well.”

Former Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis promised to reform Local Government and introduce it to New Providence.

However, this was never done. His administration did not embrace a report it commissioned, which made recommendations on how to reform the system.

Mr Sweeting suggested the administration is not concerned with New Providence right now, saying: “We are looking at Family Islands urgently because that is lacking.”

He also said: “We have a lot of things, such as persons who are not permanent and pensionable. We have people that’s (been) working in local government for 15, 20 years that are not a part of the government service and so it’s things like this that we have to fix, when you correct it, once we get the correct approach then we can look at other ways.”

He said officials hope for legislation by the end of the year. “(We want to) work along with other councils,” he

said. “Once we put together a proper strategic approach we’ll bring it to Cabinet and hopefully get approval and bring it to the House.”

Asked about revenue generation capacity of local councils, Mr Sweeting said: “In our Blueprint for change we spoke a lot about that.

So, a part of our blueprint and how we want to strategically change local government would be to add revenue raising powers to the local councils in the Family Islands. So, we’ll look at our strategic approach to do that, maybe collect taxes such as real property taxes. It seems the collection is lacking in the Family Islands. I can’t say to specifics what would be engaged there but we’re… looking at giving them revenue raising powers to help enhance the experience in the Family Islands so that they can really help to mould their communities.”

Mr Sweeting said the consultants hired to assist the government draft a new Local Government Act are Alexander Flowers and Alexander Williams, two former Family Island administrators.

THE TRIBUNE

Wednesday, May 4, 2022, PAGE 5

Celebrating nurses after battling the pandemic

By DENISE MAYCOCK Tribune Freeport Reporter dmaycock@tribunemedia.net GRAND Bahama nurses were praised for their resilience and contributions to global health in the last three years during the official opening of Nurses Month in Freeport on Monday.

Cheryl Bain, principal nursing officer, commended nurses for enduring difficult and traumatic circumstances because of Hurricane Dorian and the global COVID-19 pandemic.

“I want to thank nurses and support staff for standing strong under the last three years when the northern Bahamas experienced the worst hurricane ever, named Dorian.

“We are still going through (the COVID-19 pandemic); we are resilient

and the Covid numbers are decreasing in the Bahamas.

So, give yourself a pat on the back for being a part of the global health statistics,” she said.

May is recognised as Nurses Month around the world. It is time set aside globally to recognize nurses for the contributions made to their profession.

The International Nurses Congress has chosen as its theme this year: Nurses- A Voice to Lead; Investing in Nursing and Respect Rights to Secure Global Health.

Nurse Bain said nurses have a strong voice as there are 27 million nurses globally.

“I will say today we are standing strong among the strongest. Bahamian nurses are accounted in that 27 million. We are not alone in this fight for global health,” she stressed.

She said Grand Bahama

nurses are also leading in advocacy, education, standards, leadership, and management. She urged them to continue to let their voices to be heard.

Nurse Bain indicated that COVID-19 had affected nurses at GBHS. “At the beginning of COVID-19, I can tell you the fear was there.

And during the pandemic unfortunately we lost one nurse. It was traumatic for us during that time when one of our colleagues was impacted, and it hit us in the face.”

At one point, she recalled that 45 nurses and support staff were out at the same time. “I think that was another realisation that, hey, this could wipe you out.”

Nurse Bain said that additional nurses were not there, many nurses were burnt out and concerned

about infecting their families and children.

“We had to deal with the realities and practical side of being human. There were some nurses we had to pray with and take them out of the space,” she added.

The principal nursing officer said with Covid they also had a lot of nurses who left, both Bahamian and expats who went abroad.

“Last year, I lost about 31 registered nurses here and that really impacted us here,” she said.

But Nurse Bain reported that the nursing shortage is being addressed through a nursing programme at the University of the Bahamas and other tertiary institutions, including Terreve College.

“They are doing their best and I applaud them in terms of training. We are getting a good number from UB, and Terreve

College in GB which provided seven newly trained nurses that really helped us.

And there are some other training agencies in New Providence, so I should say we are in a great place to recruit nurses locally because they are coming,” she said.

She stressed that Grand Bahama is not doing “too bad” in terms of the number of nurses.

Nurse Bain reported that to date there are no nurses in quarantine or isolation. “We are back to some normalcy; I would say about 85 percent, and we are promised some new nurses into GB. During COVID it was very hard to recruit anybody because everyone was closing their borders. And right now, the borders are opened, and that will allow us to recruit one or two nurses in specialties that we need.”

The activities planned for

Nurses Month included a Church Service in Pelican Point on Sunday, May 1. On Thursday, May 5, is Midwives Day, and next week nurses will visit the schools to screen students and teachers and faculty.

“We are committed to a full week of school care to conduct screening… to make sure everyone is okay because people are stressed these days,” said Nurse Bain.

Thursday, May 12, is International Nurses Day – the birthday of pioneer nurse Florence Nightingale. Nurses will also gather at Jubilee Cathedral to hear from Rev Godfrey Williams who will give testimony about the care he received during COVID at the Rand. A Float Parade is also planned.

On Thursday, May 26, there will be a nurses luncheon and other educational and social events for nurses.

PRINCESS MARGARET HOSPITAL, where there are complaints of mould and malfunctioning air conditioners.

NURSES FILE DISPUTE OVER SAFETY from page one

who were out sick due to the presence of mould in the workplace.

The dispute was filed on April 19.

The BNU president said: “We have been losing a lot of our nurses in The Bahamas and they are moving on to and are going to better places with better benefits if we want to keep our nurses.

If we could offer, we must offer in a timely fashion and we have not been doing that. I’m sitting around waiting for years for a promotion. When I get to the States, my yearly performance here - bang it comes.

No delays. You have people waiting three to 10 years.

The promotion is there sitting on somebody’s desk.

“I have three nurses waiting from last year June have not been appointed. The two governments will share this problem. We have the new government been in for nine months and they were waiting from last June.

To this year coming, June will make a whole year they have not gotten an appointment letter and getting a salary that is less than a $1,000.

“How have they been surviving for a whole year?

That’s not good. Then you’ve already failed them.

They ain’t start working yet.

They only have disbelief in your organisation because of the way that you’ve handled business. You know we’ve been working on this. So, that’s why we say failure to communicate to our members, failure to communicate to the union because nurses have to call and say ‘I haven’t got that

appointment letter yet, madame president’.”

Before the weekly Cabinet meeting, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville acknowledged BNU did file a dispute, noting a lot of it has to do with the condition of some of the clinics as well as tertiary facilities.

He gave an assurance that officials were doing what they can at the ministry to begin to solve long standing problems that exist at many of the healthcare facilities.

“I must say that we moved on it immediately.

We went through the mould remediation exercise and the building was assessed by a public analyst and the building has been cleaned and workers are back in that particular facility.

But with that being said we do have some buildings with the Ministry of Health that have issues and we believe we are on top of them and we constantly have to go through the process of mould remediation

and cleaning. A lot of it has to do with the infrastructural upgrades that (are) needed. If you have air conditioning systems that are not working effectively you can have increase temperature that can cause mould build up.

“If you have leaks at particular buildings where there may be air conditioning leaks as a loss of integrity of the roof, we need to move on that because where water goes or moisture goes, mould will follow.

“So, we are doing what we can as I speak at the ministry to begin to solve longstanding problems that exist with many of the healthcare facilities.”

The minister noted renovations going on at the Elizabeth Estate clinic and work beginning to start renovations at the South Beach Clinic. However, renovations are needed at the Blue Hill Road clinic.

He noted that much of that preparation has been done and looks forward

PAGE 6, Wednesday, May 4, 2022

The Tribune Limited

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PICTURE OF THE DAY

NULLIUS ADDICTUS JURARE IN VERBA MAGISTRI “Being Bound to Swear to The Dogmas of No Master”

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Publisher/Editor 1919-1972 Contributing Editor 1972-1991 C.M.G., M.S., B.A., LL.B. Publisher/Editor 1972-

LEON E. H. DUPUCH, SIR ETIENNE DUPUCH,

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Published daily Monday to Friday

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Give our nurses what they need to protect our health IT is Nurses Month this month – an event in Freeport marked the start of the series of events to honour the efforts of healthcare workers in The Bahamas.

Those efforts have been greater than ever before in these past two years, as the world has battled with the pandemic of COVID-19.

At the event on Monday, the personal cost of that battle was highlighted – with principal nursing officer Cheryl Bain saying: “At the beginning of COVID19, I can tell you the fear was there. And during the pandemic unfortunately we lost one nurse. It was traumatic for us during that time when one of our colleagues was impacted, and it hit us in the face.”

So heavily impacted was the nursing profession during COVID that Nurse Bain said that at one point 45 nurses and support staff were out at the same time.

She said: “I think that was another realisation that, hey, this could wipe you out.”

She talked of how when extra hands were needed, they simply were not there, while nurses were left burnt out by the workload and worrying about infecting their own loved ones when they returned from work.

Staff numbers dwindled – with Nurse Bain saying that she lost about 31 registered nurses who left, both Bahamians and expats who went abroad.

It highlights the scale of the challenge that has faced the profession – and the challenge it still faces to replenish those numbers, and give people the level of staff and support they need.

That need, of course, is there to look after us. To care for the public when we fall ill. To deal with the next wave of COVID if it comes.

So this year’s celebration of nurses comes at a time when the recognition of the effort they put in is more needed than ever.

These nurses have put their own health on the line for us – and we should be thankful, and honour them in return.

It is sad, then, that this comes at a moment when the Bahamas Nurses Union has felt it has no option but to file a trade dispute against the Public Hospitals Authority and the Department of Public Health.

The union president, Amancha Williams, detailed safety issues – noting five nurses who had suffered electrical shocks, and highlighting the presence of mould in the workplace leading to staff being sick.

There are also concerns over a lack of promotions and appointments.

Some of those issues may still remain at dispute – but for the sake of those nurses who have given so much, the very least we can do is make sure their environment is safe.

There should not be any dispute over fixing issues of mould or identifying problems with electric shocks. We should not have staff working in environments that can make them ill.

It has been hard enough for nurses to deal with the fallout from the effects of COVID-19 – we should not allow them to struggle against the infrastructure itself just to get the job done.

So we hope officials will honour our nurses this month – and that isn’t just through ceremonies or church services or school visits, that’s through making sure they’ve got what they need to get the job done – enough staff and a safe environment. That should not be too much for nurses to ask.

Exploiting women EDITOR, The Tribune.

ORGANISERS of the forthcoming Bahamas Carnival series of events have received the green light from the Ministry of Health and Wellness to go ahead with their plans for 2022 Survival Weekend on May 20-22.

The main concern of the Progressive Liberal Party administration is the safety of participants, as COVID19 remains a threat. But I believe that the PLP should also look at the moral aspects of Bahamas Carnival, as organisers have enlisted the services of Trinidadian soca artists Destra Garcia and Allison Hinds and Bajan artist Patrice Roberts.

Destra goes by the nickname ‘Queen of Bacchanal.’

I wrote in the past that Bacchanal is derived from an ancient Roman festival called Bacchanalia, which was held in honour of Bacchus, the god of wine. It was an event where pagan worshipers of Bacchus would cast off all moral restraints, as they drank excessively and engaged in promiscuous sex. Based on her lewd stage acts, Destra is well aware of the historical significance of her pseudonym. For unmarried individuals who struggle with strong sexual urges, the best coping mechanism during Bahamas Carnival is to simply not watch it.

Frankly, no one should. It is indeed troubling that the state would facilitate such an event that dishonours God. In 2020, Destra released a video titled “Me Gusta,” which featured American professional cricketer Muhammad Ahsan Ali Khan. In the video, released in December 2019, the then 42-year-old scantily clad Destra is seen gyrating or “bussing ah wine” on Khan. Khan was born in Pakistan, and I am assuming that he hails from a devout

Muslim family, judging from reports that the video deeply offended his father.

It is indeed ironic that Pakistani Muslims seem to have higher moral standards and a greater sense of decorum than Bahamians, many of whom claim to be devout Christians. Another concern of mine is that Bahamas Carnival is a state-sanctioned exploitation of scantily clad female revelers, some of whom are prominent professionals who otherwise would never be seen in such a vulgar manner. For Bahamian predators, Bahamas Carnival is a feast for the eyes. In recent years Trinidad and Tobago passed a new legislation that requires consent to gyrate with fellow revelers. This law is aimed at combating sexual harassment against women during carnival in that Caribbean country. Sexual harassment, rape and other forms of gender based violence were common occurrences at carnival events in Trinidad and Tobago. In fact, a Japanese steel pan player and carnival participant named Asami Nagakiya was raped and strangled to death by convicted felon David Allen in February 2016. Her remains were discovered at Queen’s Park Savannah in Port of Spain.

Bahamians who have visited Trinidad and Tobago to attend carnival would be familiar with this location.

Allen was gunned down

by Trinidadian police in December 2016. I read that the murdered Japanese was clad in a bikini, which led the late Port of Spain Mayor Raymond Tim Kee to victim-blame Nagakiya for her demise. Thankfully, Kee would subsequently tender his resignation. But my purpose in referencing this troubling incident is to show the inherent dangers female revelers are exposed to at

carnival, as the event attracts many sexual predators who are hoping for an opportunity to prey on scantily clad female participants. In 2017, it was reported by Brazilian law enforcement officials that they received a staggering 2,154 calls relating to violence against women at carnival. It is not uncommon for Brazilian men to ejaculate on women during carnival, as they gyrate during the parade.

Ironically, The Bahamas, like Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago, has high rates of sexual assaults against women. In Brazil, for example, women were raped every 10 minutes in 2021.

There were 56,098 sexual assault cases reported in that South American country last year. In Trinidad and Tobago, reports of incest, rape and other sexual offences had increased in 2021 to 1,104 -- 443 more than in 2020, which represents a 67 percent increase.

With carnival being such a massive event in these two countries, it comes as no surprise that rape and other forms of sexual assault figures are inordinately high.

Yet here is The Bahamas attempting to mimic these countries in order to add to its tourism product. The PLP government, and by extension the people of The Bahamas, must make up their minds if they’re serious about combating gender based violence. I am beginning to think that all the talk about protecting women was nothing more than meaningless chatter. In my layman’s opinion, Bahamas Carnival should be permanently scrapped by the Bahamian government. We must not be in the business of exploiting our women.

KEVIN EVANS Freeport, Grand Bahama.

May 3, 2022.

DEMONSTRATORS rally in support of abortion rights at a park in lower Manhattan yesterday. A draft opinion suggests the US Supreme Court could be poised to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalised abortion nationwide.

Photo: Wong Maye-E/AP

Modernising our nation EDITOR, The Tribune.

MOST Bahamians would agree that the Bahamas has made significant progress since becoming an independent country in 1973. The past forty-nine years as a sovereign nation has tested the national unity and political leadership of the country. There have been remarkable achievements and many disappointments over this time, but the Westminster system that the Bahamas inherited from the British, together with a national will to respect the core values of the system, have brought relative stability to the Bahamian body politic.

I believe that as we approach the 50th anniversary of independence it is a good time to consider some modernisation to the social, political and economic fabric of the society.

The political leaders of the country historically have been very conservative as it relates to the modernisation of the governance of the country. The legacy of Bahamian political leadership is that it has been late in making fundamental upgrades to the democracy. Whether it has been the institution of the Secret Ballot, repeal of plural voting, extension of the right to vote for women, ascension to independence or the grant of equality for women in the Constitution, the Bahamas has trailed behind the larger Englishspeaking countries in the Caribbean.

The reticence to introduce the requisite upgrades to the democracy demonstrates a selfish, slavish determination to retain the status quo. This fundamental conservatism saps vitality and innovation from the youth and from the entrepreneurial spirit, leaving in its wake a spirit of dependency and despondency.

But all is not lost! The urgency of digitalisation promises a Bahamas where greater ease of doing business will become a reality.

In so greeting the digital age we should not be too callous to forget that a sizeable part of the population is not computer savvy and will continue to require the human touch.

The Bahamas seems headed to be a leader in the world of cryptocurrency exchange, especially in this part of the world.

The Davis administration is wisely crafting the legislative and regulatory framework for the expansion of this fast-growing

LETTERS letters@tribunemedia.net industry, and already FTX, a leader in the industry, is relocating its headquarters from Hong Kong to the Bahamas. There is general excitement and expectation that this new push by the government could lead to many additional crypto businesses relocating to the Bahamas. If this new policy direction is managed successfully, it could have the effect of finally beginning the process of diversifying the economy and adding a new revenue stream to the national finances.

In the same vein, the House recently passed the Climate Change and Carbon Market Initiatives Bill, 2022 to encourage and facilitate the sale and monetising of carbon credits. If successful, this piece of legislation should add extra revenues to the treasury while at the same time serve to protect our natural resources.

I wish to suggest a few additional areas where we can modernise the Bahamian patrimony.

• Let us begin with the Oath of Office. Officials are still required to swear allegiance to the Queen Her Heirs and Successors.

In a sovereign Bahamas officials of the state should be required to pledge their fidelity to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. All it takes is a repeal of/or amendment to the Official Oath Act. Let’s get it done.

• Transforming the Bahamas to a Republic is more complicated, but we need to start the process and make it happen. This will require an expansive education programme throughout the Bahamas followed by the legislative process culminating with a referendum.

It needs to be done.

• There needs to be a modernisation of the legislative process. Complex legislation such as the Procurement Act, the Fiscal Responsibility Act and any legislation dealing with cryptocurrency should be sent to parliamentary committees after first reading of the Bill. These committees which could be joint committees to include Senators would bring in experts on the subject matter who would give deeper insights into the proposed legislation. The information gained from the committees would better inform the debate in Parliament. After the committee hearings

individual Members of Parliament should then hold town hall meetings in their constituencies to better educate constituents.

• A fully functioning and modern democracy should involve having two levels of representation; at the community level and at the national level. It is now time to introduce community or local government to New Providence. This would necessitate dividing New Providence into four or five districts. Each district would have its own local Assembly elected from within the relevant district. The assembly members would debate and pass Resolutions on issues which impact the various communities within the district.

This secondary parliamentary institution would offer communities greater involvement in how the community is managed and developed and would assist in developing leaders in the communities and at the national level.

• It is past time for the Bahamas to adopt the metric system in its weights and measurements. The Bahamas and the United States may be the only two countries in the world who have not officially adopted the metric system. Most Bahamians have no recognition or appreciation of size, distance or other measurements when these are discussed globally. The rest of the world has been using the metric system since 1790. Come on man it’s the 21st century!

The Bahamas holds tremendous potential and is poised for growth in its social, economic and cultural development. That potential needs to be harnessed and energised.

Modernising key areas of the democracy and economy is one way to start the process. There are many other areas that cry out for modernisation such as a modern tax regime, a more modern education system and the road traffic laws that I did not have time to explore in this letter. The number of students choosing not to return home after completing tertiary education abroad needs to be addressed.

As we approach the 50th anniversary of independence, modernisation of the democracy and economy could very well be the vehicle to slow down this brain drain.

MAURICE TYNES Nassau, May 3, 2022.

THE TRIBUNE

Wednesday, May 4, 2022, PAGE 7

MAN ACCUSED OF TWO ARMED ROBBERIES

TALKS HELD ON REFUGEE ISSUES PRIME Minister Philip “Brave” Davis, ministers, and other officials had discussions with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ deputy representative to The United States and The Caribbean, Jon Hoisaeter, and protection officer for The Bahamas, Crispin Hall, recently.

Discussions were held on issues related to management of asylum and migration challenges in The Bahamas, as well as on the legislative reform on nationality. They also discussed lessons learned from Hurricane Dorian.

UNHCR reiterated its commitment to continue to work with the Government of the Bahamas to deal with asylum challenges and develop solutions in line with to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol.

By PAVEL BAILEY

MINISTER of National Security Wayne Munroe flanked by Jon Hoisaeter, left, and Crispin Hall and other officials.

Guilty of carrying dagger

By PAVEL BAILEY A MAN was sternly warned in a Magistrate’s Court yesterday for carrying a throwing dagger into a bar last weekend.

Michael Woodside, 31, of Taylor Street, Nassau Village, faced Magistrate Shaka Serville on charges of unlawfully carrying arms and vagrancy.

At Cliffy’s Bar in Alexandria Blvd and Taylor St on April 30, Woodside was arrested for being in possession of a black

throwing dagger and being suspected of intending to commit an offence there.

In court yesterday, Woodside pleaded guilty and provided an explanation for carrying the weapon.

The defendant explained that he lived nearby with a friend in a house that belongs to his father’s family and that he went to the bar to buy toilet tissue. He further admitted to being intoxicated when officers arrested him and found the dagger and confiscated it.

When asked by the Magistrate how he came to have such a weapon, Woodside claimed that he had just bought it from a man at a Chinese store to protect himself in his neighborhood.

While Magistrate Serville understood Woodside’s need to protect himself, saying that the defendant’s neighborhood was a “pocket of danger”, he still admonished Woodside over his decision to carry the weapon.

Despite this, Magistrate Serville said the nature of the area

was no excuse to carry arms and told the defendant that having a dagger is just as illegal as carrying a gun.

However, because of Woodside’s early confession, which the Magistrate commended him for, Magistrate Serville elected to only sternly warn the defendant for the arms charge.

The prosecution followed that by withdrawing the vagrancy charge and Woodside’s case was fully discharged.

MAN GRANTED BAIL IN DRUGS AND MONEY CASE

By PAVEL BAILEY A MAN was granted $6,000 bail in a Magistrate’s Court for alleged drug possession and laundering over $1,000.

Everton Leonard Wright, 37, stood before Magistrate Shaka Serville on separate charges of possession of dangerous drugs with intent to supply and money laundering.

On May 1, Wright was arrested in New Providence

after he was found in possession of 13 grams of cocaine with a street value of $780.

The defendant is also alleged to have been in possession of $1,286, which was seized by the police as they suspected the cash was the proceeds of criminal activity.

In court, Wright pleaded guilty to the drug possession charge but after consultation with his attorney Ryszard Humes altered his money laundering plea to not

guilty.

The defendant previously served nine months at the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services for similar possession charges.

As part of his plea of mitigation on behalf of his client, Mr Humes informed the court that Wright was a father of three, including a 4-month-old baby, and the breadwinner of his family.

Humes further implored the magistrate to impose a

noncustodial sentence in consideration of Wright’s early plea of guilt on the drug charges as well as the relatively minimal amount of drugs in his client’s possession.

Magistrate Serville then granted Wright bail at $6,000 with one or two sureties on both charges as the prosecution was awaiting further information on the defendant’s case.

Wright’s case was adjourned until May 6 for potential ruling on the drug charge.

A MAN was yesterday remanded to the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services for allegedly committing two counts of armed robbery.

Anthony Wright, 35, appeared before Assistant Chief Magistrate Subusola Swain for the alleged armed robberies of Daylan Majors and Brittney Stubbs.

On February 2 in New Providence, Wright is accused of robbing Major of his $5,000 black 2013 Honda Fit while armed with a handgun.

On that same day and also in the capital, the accused is alleged to have robbed Ms Stubbs at gunpoint of her $50 Gucci Handbag, $30 Gucci Purse, a $100 bill and a $350 rose gold iPhone 8.

Due to the serious nature of the offense Wright was not required to enter a plea in court and was informed that his case would proceed by way of Voluntary Bill of Indictment (VBI).

The Magistrate denied the defendant bail at this time but told Wright that he could appeal for it through the Supreme Court.

As such, Wright was remanded to the Bahamas Department of Corrections until his next court appearance on August 30 for service of his VBI.

MAN DEAD, ANOTHER SHOT IN THE HEAD from page one

However, he would not confirm whether there was also a gunshot wound to his chest.

Supt Peters added that there were no leads at the moment.

This killing comes hours after an inmate on the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services’ work programme was fatally shot in broad daylight while on his job.

The man, who The Tribune was told was Timothy Saunders, was at a fuel pump at Rubis Station at Mackey and Madeira Streets, when a lone gunman approached and shot him several times in his body.

Anyone with information on these incidents is asked to call the police at 919, 502-9991 or Crime Stoppers at 328-TIPS (8477).

PAGE 8, Wednesday, May 4, 2022

THE TRIBUNE

How you can make Mother’s Day magical

MOTHER’S Day is just a few days away, and many are scrambling to make plans and purchases for the mothers in their lives.

Mothers are, of course, deserving of this day of recognition, celebration and, most of all, ease. Motherhood becomes, in many cases, a state of being, and mothering is an unending series of actions, some of which are imperceptible. It is thinking ahead, predicting outcomes, solving problems, filling in for people who fail to show up, answering calls for help, cheerleading, storing information, and sharing knowledge. It is more than the work we see — the cooking, cleaning, taxiing, nursing, supervising, and disciplining. It is layers and layers of invisible work that make other activities possible. It is knowing every birthday and anniversary, keeping mental lists of what is in the pantry and refrigerator, keeping up with multiple people’s schedules, and navigating changing relationships as children get older and have different needs. I often look at the mother in my life in wonder, amazed by what and how much they do.

Mothers are constantly giving. They give their money, they give their time, they give their energy, and they give their advice. They pull people aside when they need to be updated, corrected, or convinced to do what is necessary, right, or helpful. Mothers make sure people have what they need and can present the best versions of themselves to the world. Motherhood, in many cases, changes

By Alicia Wallace people’s lives, giving them a different lens to view the world, a new priority, and a different way of being.

Mothers sustain our lives.

Some argue that it is natural, that women are wired to mother, to nurture. It cannot be ignored, however, that motherhood has been conceptualized and is practised within the expectations and limitations of gender. We understand mothers to be women, and that women perform in a particular way. If a woman becomes a mother, there are certain expectations that she must meet, regardless of the resources available to her. Mothers are hailed as heroes for doing far too much and having to look good while they do it. They are blamed for all that goes wrong with their children, no matter the age, no matter the participation of other parents or guardians.

It is unfortunate that the work of mothers is so rarely recognized, and so often criticised. Motherhood is a double-edged sword, and it comes with just one day for celebration.

While we may not be able to provide compensation to our mothers, we can find ways to make Mother’s Day special and to lighten the load they carry yearround. They may enjoy seeing loved ones at church

services, being treated to brunch, having a fancy lunch, or being “queen for a day,” but there are ways to give mothers more of what they actually want. That could be having quality time more often with the people they love, having more time to do things they enjoy that are not linked to their children’s needs, having fewer responsibilities that could be easily shared fall to them by default, and many other meaningful changes that require more effort than dressing up and spending a few dollars.

An overdone trope on television is a man buying a woman a new vacuum cleaner. He always thinks he has done the world by giving her a gadget that will make cleaning easier, or they may even imagine it would be fun. She smiles politely and expresses gratitude, but it is obvious that she is disappointed in the presentation of household equipment, benefitting everyone, as a personal gift.

This year, try to do Mother’s Day differently. Offer something truly valuable to the mothers in your life.

Give them something that will last more than a day.

Don’t limit yourself to the things you can pick up from a roadside vendor in a rush.

Think about their lives and what would make them

easier. Think about what answer questions, check would bring them more joy the work, make the payand ease. What would they ments, and give the rides like to or do less? What home. would they like to experiFor Mother’s Day, take ence more often? What on some of that work, longare they not going to do for term. If you live in the themselves or specifically house, you do some of the request? work. Make the commitThis does not have to ment and follow through, be an all-expense paid trip whether it is doing the to Bali (though if you can dishes every evening, preafford it and she wants it, paring breakfast three why not?). mornings per week, or Did she grow up some- doing the laundry. Encourwhere else and not have age other capable people in the chance to visit in the the household to participate last decade? Has she lost in the domestic work, even contact with a good friend if you have to teach them. you can easily At a certain find on social ‘This year, try to age, children media?

Is do Mother’s Day can take their she sick and own plates differently. Offer tired of doing to the sink, school pickup something truly clean their for your sib- valuable to the own rooms, ling, but will and help with mothers in your never say so? bigger tasks.

Find solu- life. Give them You may even tions to her something that be able to problems, just create some will last more like she finds competition solutions for than a day. Don’t and fun in the yours. Don’t limit yourself to household. have a lot Either way, the things you of money to it is unfair go around? can pick up from for mothMany of the a roadside vendor ers to do all best gifts of this work, do not cost in a rush. Think and now is a money. Here about their lives great time to are three and what would move toward ideas: equality in the make them easier.’

1.

Share home. unpaid 2.

Share domestic work. Women unpaid care work. Care are often tasked with all work never seems to end. or most of the household Babies need to be fed, todcleaning and management. dlers need to be bathed, This includes sweeping, older children need to be mopping, vacuuming, dust- helped with their homeing, dishwashing, laundry, work, and teenagers need ironing, and making beds. supervision, rides, advice, They are typically the ones and encouragement. to make arrangements for Parents and grandvarious services such as parents need help carpet cleaning, pressure maintaining their homes, washing, and diagnosis and rides to appointments, and repair of appliances. They company in the evenings. rearrange their schedules Women step in to care to coordinate and present for multiple generations. for delivery of cooking gas. Women are often the ones They supervise the work to leave work to do school of people hired to assist pick-up, in many cases sacwith housecleaning, land- rificing their lunch breaks. scaping, and childcare, so Grandmothers seem to even if money is spent to be expected to take care reduce the burden, women of their children in their still have to make the lists, retirement years. communicate the needs, Some of them would

prefer to do other things with their freedom from paid work, but feel trapped doing the unpaid work of childcare for their children.

Even if Grammy enjoys taking care of the children, she deserves to have some free time. If she does every week day, think about ways to give her a day or two off.

Be sure that her kindness is costing her, not only money, but time to enjoy the company of friends and family of her choosing.

Just because women do this work, and even enjoy parts of it, does not mean they should (feel as though they) have to do it. Lighten the load by stepping up and thinking creatively.

3. Create an experience.

Ask the mothers in your life what they would like to do. Whose company would they like to have?

How would they like to spend one day? How would they like to spend their weekends? Where is their favorite place? Where do they feel most at peace?

What makes them feel loved? When do they feel appreciated?

Instead of doing what is easy or feels good for you, instead of doing what you would like to brag about on Monday, do something just for them. Do something that responds to their needs. Maybe a mother, for Mothers Day, would like for everyone to be out of the house so she can enjoy the quiet and not have to get dressed for once.

Maybe a mother would like the spare bedroom to be cleared of all junk, and to be able to spend one hour per day in a comfortable chair in that room. A mother may want to learn to swim, or help taking the children to the beach.

A mother may want time to finish her PhD dissertation, and that may mean a few months off from grocery shopping and cooking dinner. Maybe a bottle of perfume will do it, but ask.

Ask mothers what they want, and be prepared to create that experience for them.

s n o i t a d n e m m o c Re 1. Ain’t That a Mother by Adiba Nelson.

Nelson is an Afro-Latina woman sharing her motherhood journey in a memoir. The book blurb says, “Mom to a new baby with high medical needs and with a slew of hardships that just won’t quit, she set out on a reckoning that was just as generational as it was personal. Along the way, Adiba never loses her heart or her humour.”

2. Black Girls Must Die Exhausted by Jayne Allen. This book is on many book club lists, roundup articles, and to-beread piles. The title

comes from an old adage by the main character Tabitha’s grandmother.

While Tabitha had big plans to have it all, life threw her a curveball. Strong relationships with the women in her life, including her friends and her beloved grandmother, she figures out how to pull it all together.

3. Maid by Stephanie Land. This memoir was adapted by Netflix for a limited series of the same name.

Land shares her experience of working as a maid and struggling to make ends meet.

It is a compelling story, spotlighting the difficulty of being underpaid and all but invisible while showing what one can learn about people by cleaning their homes.

THE TRIBUNE

Wednesday, May 4, 2022, PAGE 9

TECHTALK

NEW ZEALAND ROCKET CAUGHT BUT THEN DROPPED

BY HELICOPTER

By NICK PERRY Associated Press

THE WISE3R Reverberation Lab at Langley’s new Measurement Systems Laboratory is shown in Hampton, Va. (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot via AP)

NASA RESEARCH CENTRE OPENS 1ST NEW LAB IN NEARLY 30 YEARS

By DAVE RESS, Daily Press

HAMPTON, Va. (AP) — Even before they cut the ribbon, a tripod-mounted prototype sensor was tracking the sun on the roof of NASA-Langley Research Center’s just-opened Measurement Systems Lab. Langley’s first new lab in nearly three decades officially opened April 21. But Charles Hill, a scientist with NASA’s Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment, already set up the programme’s SAGE-IV prototype to see if it can bring a 30-years-andcounting research programme an even wider scope.

SAGE-IV is a telescope-spectrometer combination that can look at sunlight streaming through the atmosphere and measure what invisible gaseous chemicals are there and what microscopic particles are floating around.

Hill thinks it could replace the office-desk sized SAGE-III device, which is part of the external payload on the International Space Station when it comes to the end of its useful life.

The prototype’s size opens the possibility of deploying sensors in small satellites to scoop up that much more data over much wider geographies — data that can track pollutants, greenhouse gases and ozone that affect the climate and public health

A PROTOTYPE of the Sage 4 Pathfinder, a small satellite, tracks the sun from the Rooftop Instrumental Characterization Lab and Research Deck at Langley’s new Measurement Systems Laboratory in Hampton, Va. (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot via AP) generally, he said.

The heart of the SAGE-IV is a roughly four-inch-by-eight-inchby-twelve-inch box that contains a small telescope, mirrors and a spinning green plastic wheel that breaks sunlight down to various wavelengths that are fed into the box’s spectrometer.

The way that the atoms and molecules in the atmosphere mask or reveal colors from sunlight tell Hill what’s in the air.

Langley engineer Dave MacDonnell said his team came up with the design and have been refining it for several years.

Hill was working only a few steps from spaces where other researchers will be working on laser-based LIDAR systems that will help spacecraft precisely map landing spots as NASA returns to the Moon and ventures on to Mars, said NASA Langley Director Clayton Turner.

Those researchers will fire off their lasers at Peninsula water towers and other structures to test accuracy, as well as into the sky to get different readings on the atmosphere than Hill’s SAGE-IV does; they’ll work in interior spaces they can shield behind thick black curtains.

Five floors below, in a classroom-sized metal box, Jay Ely is researching how high doses of radiation can mess up aircraft electronics, navigation systems and structures.

“It’s basically a giant microwave oven,” he said.

Thick, black curtains upstairs keep stray rays of light from disrupting LIDAR lasers; the metal on the walls of his reverberation lab can keep stray radiation down to as little as one-ten-billionth of what’s emitted.

That keeps cellphones and electricity passing through some of the nearly 20 miles of wiring in the new Measurement Systems Laboratory building from throwing off what Ely and his team see — and also keeps them safe, when they step outside so they can zap aircraft parts and systems with potentially deadly doses of radiation.

Work at the new, $95.6 million Measurement Systems lab building will include sensor and antenna technologies developed critical for work on Langley’s personal air vehicles programmes, as well as testing systems to further refine Langley’s computer models of aerodynamic flow and heating — the models that have already led to the development of a supersonic passenger plane prototype that doesn’t generate earsplitting sonic booms.

A sensor jokingly dubbed the “proton torpedo” because it looks like something from Star Trek, will gather data researchers and engineers hope will help them are develop new ways for planes to dodge bad weather, other planes and even lightning strikes.

The Measurement System Laboratory’s work on sensors and measurement instruments will support three key NASA missions: landing spacecraft safely and mapping the Moon and Mars, finding more efficient and safer ways to operate aircraft on Earth and understanding the Earth’s atmosphere and climate, Turner said.

He said he believes the lab is designed and built “to encourage people to collaborate, to hear new ideas about ways to do things ... we don’t want people to be thinking only about a gadget, we want them to think about how is what we’re doing going to change people’s lives.”

CHINA GRANTS FIRST DRIVERLESS TAXI PERMITS TO BAIDU, PONY.AI BEIJING (AP) — China has granted Chinese internet services company Baidu and a rival autonomous car company, Pony.ai, permits to provide driverless ride-hailing services to the public in Beijing, a significant regulatory step in the country’s pursuit of driverless technology.

The permits given to Baidu and Pony.ai allow them to offer rides without a safety driver behind the wheel to take over in cases of an emergency. The new permits still require a safety supervisor to be seated in the front passenger seat.

Baidu said 10 such autonomous cars began offering rides to passengers within a 60-square-kilometre (23-square-mile) area in suburban Beijing from last week Thursday.

Baidu already operates

A BAIDU Apollo Robotaxi passes its customer service counter setup at the Shougang Park in Beijing in 2021. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File) an autonomous fleet of taxis in Beijing under its Apollo Go ride-hailing services, but they must have a safety driver behind the wheel.

China has ambitions to

lead autonomous driving technology globally but lags the U.S. in introducing such services. Alphabet’s Waymo began offering driverless taxi services in Phoenix,

Arizona in 2020.

In 2020, Beijing set a goal for 70% of cars sold in 2030 to have Level 2 and Level 3 self-driving technology.

Level 2 is partial driving

automation, which means the vehicle can control steering and speed.

Level 3 automation means that the car can detect what’s going on around it and drive itself.

Baidu, best known for its search engine and online advertising services, has in recent years invested heavily in autonomous driving and artificial intelligence technology, including automated personal assistants and AI chips.

The company said in a statement that it has accumulated over 27 million kilometres (16 million miles) of road testing over the last nine years with no traffic accidents.

Baidu’s Apollo Go autonomous taxi services operate in nine cities across China, including Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Using a helicopter to catch a falling rocket is such a complex task that Peter Beck likens it to a “supersonic ballet.”

Rocket Lab, the company that Beck founded, partially pulled off the feat Tuesday as it pushes to make its small Electron rockets reusable. But after briefly catching the spent rocket, a helicopter crew was quickly forced to let it go again for safety reasons, and it fell into the Pacific Ocean where it was collected by a waiting boat.

The California-based company regularly launches 18-metre (59-foot) rockets from the remote Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand to deliver satellites into space.

On Tuesday, the Electron rocket was launched in the morning and sent 34 satellites into orbit before the main booster section began falling to Earth. Its descent was slowed to about 10 metres (33 feet) per second by a parachute.

That’s when the helicopter crew sprang into action, dangling a long line with a hook below the helicopter to snag the booster’s parachute lines.

The crew caught the rocket but the load on the helicopter exceeded the parameters from tests and simulations, so they jettisoned it again.

The roller coaster of emotions was caught in a livestream of the event, with people at mission control cheering and clapping as the rocket was caught, only to let out a collective gasp and sigh about 20 seconds later.

Still, Beck hailed the mission as a success, saying that almost everything went to plan and that the unexpected load issue was a tiny detail which would soon be fixed, a “nothing in the scheme of things.”

“They got a great catch.

They just didn’t like the way the load was feeling,” Beck said of the helicopter crew in a conference call after the launch.

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PAGE 10, Wednesday, May 4, 2022

THE TRIBUNE

PRESIDENT Joe Biden speaks to the media before boarding Air Force One yesterday.

Photo: Evan Vucci/AP

Biden blasts ‘radical’ draft of Roe Supreme Court opinion WASHINGTON Associated Press

PRESIDENT Joe Biden yesterday blasted a “radical” Supreme Court draft opinion that would throw out the landmark Roe v Wade abortion rights ruling t hat has stood for a half century. The court cautioned no final decision had been made, but Biden warned that other privacy rights including same-sex marriage and birth control are at risk if the justices follow through.

Chief Justice John Roberts said he had ordered an investigation into what he called the “egregious breach of trust” in leaking the draft document, which was dated to February. Opinions often change in ways big and small in the drafting process, and a final ruling has not been expected until the end of the court’s term in late June or early July.

Across the nation,

Americans grappled with what might come next.

The Democratic-controlled Congress and White House both vowed to try to blunt the impact of such a ruling, but their prospects looked dim.

A decision to overrule Roe would have sweeping ramifications, leading to abortion bans in roughly half the states, sparking new efforts in Democratic-leaning states to protect access to abortion, and potentially reshaping the contours of this year’s hotly contested midterm elections.

The draft was published by the news outlet Politico late on Monday.

Speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One, Biden said he hoped the draft wouldn’t be finalised by justices, contending it reflects a “fundamental shift in American jurisprudence” that threatens “other basic rights” like access to birth control and marriage.

“If this decision holds, it’s really quite a radical decision,” he added.

“If the court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose,” Biden said. “And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November. At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law.”

Though past efforts have failed, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he intended to hold a vote.

“This is as urgent and real as it gets,” Schumer said on the Senate floor yesterday.

“Every American is going to see on which side every senator stands.”

Leaders in New York and California rolled out the welcome mat to their states

for women seeking abortions, and other Democratic states moved to protect access to abortion in their laws.

The court’s ruling would be most acutely felt by women who don’t have the means or ability to travel from states that have or stand poised to pass stiff abortion restrictions or outright bans.

Whatever the outcome, the Politico report late Monday represented an extremely rare breach of the court’s secretive deliberation process, and on a case of surpassing importance.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” the draft opinion states.

It was signed by Justice Samuel Alito, a member of the court’s 6-3 conservative majority who was appointed by former President George W Bush.

The document was labeled a “1st Draft” of the “Opinion of the Court” in a case challenging Mississippi’s ban

on abortion after 15 weeks.

The draft opinion in effect states there is no constitutional right to abortion services. It would allow individual states to more heavily regulate or outright ban the procedure.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” it states, referencing the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v Casey that affirmed Roe’s finding of a constitutional right to abortion services but allowed states to place some constraints on the practice. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

The draft opinion strongly suggests that when the justices met in private shortly after arguments in the case on December 1, at least five — all the conservatives except perhaps Chief Justice Roberts — voted to overrule Roe and Casey, and Alito was assigned the task of writing the court’s

majority opinion.

Votes and opinions in a case aren’t final until a decision is announced or, in a change wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, posted on the court’s website.

Politico said only that it received “a copy of the draft opinion from a person familiar with the court’s proceedings in the Mississippi case along with other details supporting the authenticity of the document”.

The report comes amid a legislative push to restrict abortion in several Republican-led states — Oklahoma being the most recent — even before the court issues its decision. Critics of those measures have said low-income and minority women will disproportionately bear the burden of the new restrictions.

The leak jumpstarted the intense political reverberations that the high court’s ultimate decision was expected to have in the midterm election year.

RUSSIA STORMS STEEL MILL IN MARIUPOL ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine Associated Press

RUSSIAN forces yesterday began storming the steel mill containing the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, Ukrainian defenders said, just as scores of civilians evacuated from the bombed-out plant reached relative safety and told of days and nights filled with dread and despair from constant shelling.

Osnat Lubrani, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said that thanks to the evacuation effort over the weekend, 101 people — including women, the elderly, and 17 children, the youngest 6 months old — were able to emerge from the bunkers under the Azovstal steelworks and “see the daylight after two months”.

One evacuee said she went to sleep at the plant every night afraid she wouldn’t wake up.

“You can’t imagine how scary it is when you sit in the shelter, in a wet and damp basement which is bouncing, shaking,” 54-year-old Elina Tsybulchenko said upon arriving in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles northwest of Mariupol, in a convoy of buses and ambulances.

She added: “We were praying to God that missiles fly over our shelter, because if it hit the shelter, all of us would be done.”

Evacuees, a few of whom were in tears, made their way from the buses into a

tent offering some of the comforts long denied them during their weeks underground, including hot food, diapers and connections to the outside world. Mothers fed small children. Some of the evacuees browsed racks of donated clothing, including new underwear.

The news for those left behind was more grim.

Ukrainian commanders said Russian forces backed by tanks began storming the sprawling plant, which includes a maze of tunnels and bunkers spread out over four square miles.

How many Ukrainian fighters were holed up inside was unclear, but the Russians put the number at about 2,000 in recent weeks, and 500 were reported to be wounded. A few hundred civilians also remained there, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

“We’ll do everything that’s possible to repel the assault, but we’re calling for urgent measures to evacuate the civilians that remain inside the plant and to bring them out safely,” Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, said on the messaging app Telegram.

He added that throughout the night, the plant was hit with naval artillery fire and airstrikes. Two civilian women were killed and ten civilians wounded, he said.

The UN’s Lubrani expressed hope for further evacuations but said none had been worked out.

MIGRANTS sleep under a gazebo at a park in Reynosa, Mexico, last year.

Photo: Dario Lopez-Mills/AP

HAITIANS AT BORDER MIGRANT CAMP MEXICO CITY Associated Press

MEXICAN authorities said yesterday they have relocated a migrant camp that sprung up in a park in the border city of Reynosa, moving about 2,000 people from Central American and Haiti to a shelter in the city, across the border from McAllen, Texas.

The camp of migrants mainly from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti sprung up after US officials. citing the pandemic, invoked a a health rule that denies migrants a chance to seek asylum.

Mexico’s National Immigration Institute said the migrants were taken near midnight Monday to the shelter, which it said will have better hygiene and food services.

But on Monday, people in another border city, Nuevo Laredo, said

hundreds of migrants, mainly Haitians, have streamed into the city, which is across the border from Laredo, Texas.

The rush apparently started after the US began processing some asylum seekers there.

The Catholic bishop of Nuevo Laredo said on Monday that migrant shelters there are already overcrowded, with some migrants sleeping outside in tents. Bishop Enrique Sánchez Martínez said migrants started streaming into Nuevo Laredo in late April, though the city isn’t usually popular among migrants, in part because it is dominated by a violent drug cartel.

“It is new for us because this is the last place they come, due to the conditions of our border, of our city, which are sometimes adverse for migrants,” the bishop said. “But since they opened the door in the United States

to asylum requests, a lot of them came in large groups.”

Marvin Ajic, the director of the Casa Nazareth shelter, said that around April 16, Mexican authorities notified the shelters that the United States would resume processing asylum claims for humanitarian reasons.

The US had begun allowing more people in, especially Central American adults, to prepare for lifting Title 42 — a pandemic-era health rule that denies migrants a chance to enter the US seek asylum — on May 23. But a federal judge in Louisiana ruled last week that the government could not unwind the rule before the end date.

“The (Mexican) immigration officials organised things with the shelters, and the plan was to send people who had been waiting a long time, without any checks, basically anyone,” Ajic said.

SPORTS PAGE 11

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 2022

Triathlon Nationals on Jaws Beach May 15

By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

W

ith the successful return of competition with the Potcakeman Championships in March, the Bahamas Triathlon Association (BTA) is eager to stage its National Championships next weekend in Jaws Beach.

The championships, which will serve as the final trials for CARIFTA and the Commonwealth Games, is scheduled for Sunday, May 15, with a sprint triathlon, consisting of a 750-metre swim, a 20-kilometre bike ride, and 5K run for competitors 16 years and older.

Dorian Roach, president of the BTA, said they’re looking forward to hosting the event.

“For the CARIFTA segment, we’re looking to have a strong team of between 20-30 competitors competing for the team that will represent us at CARIFTA in September in Bermuda,” Roach said.

“So we’re hoping for a strong field of competitors as well who will be competing for the team that will go to the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. We have about 6-7 competitors who are eligible for the team.

“This is just the second event for us this year. We did have the Potcakeman Championships in March.

It also served as a qualifier for CARIFTA. We have standards for persons who are in the process of qualifying. Depending on the outcome from the point

system for the two events, we will then determine who qualifies for the CARIFTA team.”

The Potcakeman title was won by Simon Lowe, who is expected to be the top contender for the National Championships and a shot at making the Commonwealth Games team.

Roach said once the championship is completed, they will assess the performances and make a determination on who will be selected for the Commonwealth Games team.

“The Potcakeman went very well. I think a lot of people were really happy to be back,” Roach said.

“So I think the National Championships will be even bigger and better because those persons who were in shape for the Potcakeman will definitely be in better shape for this one to improve their times and positions.”

Already, there are over 50 competitors signed up to participate in the National Championships.

But, by race day, Roach said they anticipate the latter number to swell to over 100.

Based on their performances in the Potcakeman Championships, here’s a look at the leading contenders by points for selection to Team Bahamas for CARIFTA Triathlon: Male 11-12 - Lauchlan Menzies (10 pts), Sibby Fynn Potter (9 pts), Jayden Smith (8 pts), Callum Pritchard (7 pts), Mirko Gervasini (6 pts).

Male 13-15 - Malcolm Menzies (10 pts), Ayden Bin (9 pts), Launy

SWIM, CYCLE & RUN - Shown here are some of the respective category winners in the Bahamas Triathlon Association’s National Championships in 2019. This year’s event, which will serve as the final trials for the CARIFTA and Commonwealth Games, is scheduled for Sunday, May 15, at Jaws Beach.

Duncombe (8 pts) and Enea Gervasini (7 pts).

Male 16-19 - Jason Cates (10 pts), Barron Musgrove (9 pts) and Jonathan Mindorff (8 pts).

Female 11-12 - Taylor Knowles (10 pts), Paityn Burrows (9 pts) and Noemie Ronveaux (8 pts).

Female 13-15 - Erin Pritchard (10 pts),

Anjaleah Knowles (9 pts), Issa Bournas (8 pts), Millie Beukes (7 pts) and Taliyah Bowe (6 pts).

Female 16-19 - Sienna Culmer-Mackey (10 pts).

‘Just break the dang gas pedal’

By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net BAHAMIAN and National Basketball Association rising star Deandre Ayton liked the way his Phoenix Suns got started in game one of their Western Conference semifinal series on Monday night.

Before a sellout crowd of 17,071 at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Ayton - the number one pick in the NBA draft in 2018 - came up with 25 points to lead the Suns to a 121-114 win over the Dallas Mavericks.

“We got away from our principles, but I’m glad that happened early,” Ayton said.

“A little eye-opener to where these dudes don’t give up. Basically just, break the damn gas pedal. That’s it. Break it.

Don’t take your foot off it because they’re not letting up.”

Devin Booker posted a near triple-double with 23 points, nine rebounds and eight assists in his second game back after missing three straight games in the first round against the Pelicans with a strained right hamstring and Chris Paul added 19 points as he hit two huge shots to keep the Mavericks at bay when the Suns were going in reverse offensively.

“This is playoff basketball and it’s unacceptable the way we closed

DEANDRE AYTON AND TOP-SEEDED PHOENIX SUNS PLAYING LIKE THE FAVOURITES IN NBA PLAYOFFS it out,” Ayton said. “Coach (Monty Williams) got on us about that, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to win the game. As a team, I wouldn’t say we’re treating it as a loss, but I know for a fact we’re not losing another game like that again. “We’ll be way more locked in like we just came off the L because the team had a gut feeling. When we walked out of the locker room, not everybody was happy with how we ended that.”

The Suns started the fourth with just one starter, Mikal Bridges, along with reserves Cam Johnson, Cameron Payne, JaVale McGee, and Landry Shamet, but Williams eventually had his starting unit out there.

“Sitting there watching our bench, making sure they close out and they play the right way because that’s the type of team where coach takes the starters out and has the bench in,” Ayton said.

“Mainly it’s about playing the right way. Playing the right way and finishing out strong.”

Phoenix led 69-56 at the half as Ayton and Booker had 19 and 15 points, respectively.

PHOENIX Suns centre Deandre Ayton reacts to a shot during pregame warmups before Game 1 in the second round of the NBA Western Conference playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks, on Monday night in Phoenix.

(AP Photo/Matt York) Game two of the series is three at 9:30pm on Friday If necessary, game five scheduled for 10pm tonight and four 2:30pm on Sunday will return to the Footprint in Phoenix before they at the American Airlines Center in Phoenix at 10pm head to Dallas for game Center. next week Thursday.

Equestrian, PAGE 14

NATIONALS REINSTATE STRANGEGORDON FROM IL, OPTION LUCIUS FOX DENVER (AP) — The Washington Nationals have reinstated Dee StrangeGordon after the infielder/ outfielder completed a weeklong rehabilitation assignment at Triple-A Rochester.

To make roster room for StrangeGordon, the Nationals optioned infielder Lucius Fox to Rochester LUCIUS FOX and transferred right-hander Aníbal Sánchez from the 10-day injured list to the 60-day IL. Strange-Gordon is an 11-year veteran and twotime All-Star who was signed in December to a minor league deal after not playing in the major leagues last year. He played in four games for the Nationals before going on the injured list last month because of illness.

Manager Dave Martinez, speaking prior to last night’s game at Colorado, said Strange-Gordon would see time at shortstop, second base and centre field in addition to being at the ready off the bench.

“He’s going to get a chance to play different positions up here as before,” Martinez said. “I talked to him today and he says he feels really good so we wanted to get him back up here.”

SEE PAGE 14

WALKER’S HOME RUN, 3 RBIS LEAD D-BACKS PAST ‘JAZZ’ AND MARLINS 5-4 MIAMI (AP) — Christian Walker had a home run, double and three RBIs, and Arizona Diamondbacks held on to beat the Miami Marlins 5-4 last night.

Arizona starter Humberto Castellanos completed his longest outing of the season, pitching 5 2/3 scoreless innings.

Castellanos (2-1) allowed four hits and struck out four.

Pavin Smith also homered and Ketel Marte drove in two runs for the Diamondbacks, who have won six of eight.

The Marlins lost their second straight after a seven-game winning streak.

For the second consecutive night, Miami rallied from a 5-0 deficit with four runs in the seventh inning.

The Marlins loaded the bases with two out against Arizona reliever Luis Frias.

Jazz Chisholm Jr hit a hard smash past first base that umpire Ryan Wills originally ruled foul.

But a video review overturned the call and Chisholm was credited with a ground rule double, scoring Garrett Cooper and Brian Anderson.

Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo argued the reversal and was ejected.

Caleb Smith relieved Frias and surrendered Jesus

SEE PAGE 12

PAGE 12, Wednesday, May 4, 2022

THE TRIBUNE

QCafe ‘a buzz’ with Scholastic Individual Chess Championship THE Scholastic Individual Chess Championship was held at the QCafe, Queen’s College, on Saturday, April 30.

The Scholastic, an exciting and fast-paced tournament, has a long history of being an introductory tournament for new players.

The QCafe buzzed with new and experienced young chess minds, all determined to win the top prize. But they were no match for Avian Pride who emerged as the overall winner, winning all five of his games.

The 2022 Scholastic Individual Chess Championship

attracted 21 juniors from 12 schools, public and private, throughout New Providence.

Participants competed in four categories: - under 20, under 16, under 12 and under 8.

The Championship time was game in 10 minutes for each player, considered a blitz format.

A “blitz game” is one where all the moves must be made in a fixed time of fewer than 15 minutes for each player.

“In the game of chess there is something called the touch rule,” explained CM Kendrick Knowles, president of The Bahamas

Chess Federation. “As the name implies, in short, if you touch a piece you have to move it. You can’t change your mind and move another piece.

“The game is teaching an important lesson to the player.

“You should think so deeply that you control the emotional impulses that often manifest themselves through physical touch,” said Knowles.

“The game of chess trades on the currency of self-control. The question for most parents isn’t why you should teach your kids chess, the question really is - why wouldn’t you? The

DJOKOVIC DEFEATS MONFILS IN HIS ‘BEST’ MATCH OF YEAR AVIAN PRIDE, left, the overall winner, and CM Kendrick Knowles, right, president of the Bahamas Chess Federation.

Scholastic Chess Championship was an amazing display of chess talent, self-control and growth for chess in The Bahamas.

“The BCF congratulates Pride for his overall win and five-game sweep. We also congratulate all our category and sub-category winners for exhibiting great talent and potential.”

Scholastic Individual Chess Championship 2022 Results: OVERALL 1st Place - Avian Pride CATEGORY Under 12 1st Place - Chika Pride

2nd Place - Max White 3rd Place – Leo Zarchan Under 16 1st Place - Avian Pride 2nd Place - Joshua Rolle 3rd Place –Theophilus Weir Under 20 1st Place – Trevor Bridgewater 2nd Place – Davonye Edmond 3rd Place – Van Orense SUB-CATEGORY Under 10 Lhale Hanchell Under 14 1st Place - Joshua Rolle Top Female Player: Jayla Cargill

PENN RELAYS: BIG RED MACHINE, GIANTS BURN UP TRACK

By TALES AZZONI AP Sports Writer

MADRID (AP) — Novak Djokovic feels like the hard work is starting to pay off.

Trying to regain his best form after a slow start to the season, Djokovic looked sharp in his opener at the Madrid Open yesterday, defeating Gael Monfils 6-3, 6-2 to advance to a third-round match against Andy Murray.

“I would probably rate it as the best performance of the year. I felt very good on the court,” the top-ranked Djokovic said after saving all five break points he faced and converting the three he had against the 21st-ranked Frenchman.

It was the Serb’s 18th straight win over Monfils.

The match was interrupted at 2-2 in the first set as rain forced the roof on center court to be closed.

“Just generally very, very good performance,” he said. “I’m very pleased, considering, you know, that up to today I was not playing my best tennis in the few tournaments that I played this year and still kind of finding my rhythm, finding my groove.”

Djokovic, a three-time winner in Madrid, next faces Murray, a two-time champion in Madrid who continued his latest comeback with a 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 win over Denis Shapovalov.

Murray, a former No. 1 player who has undergone hip surgeries in recent years, had won his first match on clay in nearly two years on Monday.

Teenage sensation Carlos Alcaraz kept his good run with a 6-3, 7-5 win over Nikoloz Basilashvili, staying on track for a quarterfinal encounter with idol Rafael Nadal.

DIAMONDBACKS shortstop Sergio Alcantara (43) is forced out by Marlins second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr (2) during the fifth inning yesterday.

(Marta Lavandier/AP)

JAZZ

FROM PAGE 11

IN extremely cold weather conditions, the St John’s College Giants and St Augustine’s College Big Red Machine track and field teams competed at the Penn Relays over the weekend in Philadelphia. Now back home, the local athletes are getting ready for the second annual Sonja Knowles Track Classic, hosted by Red-Line Athletics and sponsored by the Oak Tree, scheduled for the Thomas A Robinson National Stadium 1-8 pm on Saturday, May 21, and 2-7pm on Sunday, May 22.

Aguilar’s two-run single before retiring Miguel Rojas on a grounder.

Keynan Middleton pitched a perfect eighth and Joe Mantiply closed it out for his second save.

Marte’s ground rule RBI double in the fifth made it 3-0 and ended Miami starter Trevor Rogers’ outing after 4 1/3 innings.

Cody Poteet relieved Rogers and allowed Walker’s two-run double.

Rogers (1-4) gave up five runs, six hits, walked two and struck out four. The 2021 NL Rookie of the Year runner-up, Rogers has won only one decision since June, 10 2021.

Leadoff homers from Walker and Smith in the second and third gave Arizona a 2-0 lead. Both shots off Rogers came on first pitches.

Castellanos retired the first nine before allowing consecutive singles to Chisholm and Aguilar in the fourth. But Miami didn’t break through after Jorge Soler grounded out, Jesús Sánchez popped out to third and Garrett Cooper grounded out.

THE TRIBUNE

Wednesday, May 4, 2022, PAGE 13

Brown scores 30, Celtics beat Bucks 109-86 to even series

By KYLE HIGHTOWER AP Sports Writer BOSTON (AP) — Jaylen Brown scored 25 of his 30 points in the first half, and the Boston Celtics beat the Milwaukee Bucks 109-86 last night to even their second-round playoff at one game apiece.

Brown shook off a dismal shooting night in Game 1, going 9 for 10 in the first half, including 5 for 5 from the 3-point line.

Jayson Tatum added 19 points and eight assists. Al Horford had 14 points and 11 rebounds.

The series doesn’t resume until Game 3 on Saturday in Milwaukee.

Boston finished 20 of 43 from beyond the arc.

The Celtics played without point guard Marcus Smart after he was ruled out before the game with a bruised right thigh he sustained in Game 1.

Derrick White took his place in the starting lineup, making his first start in a playoff game since 2019 when he was with San Antonio.

The Celtics clamped down on Giannis Antetokounmpo after his triple-double in the series opener, limiting him to 28 points — mostly in the third quarter — nine rebounds and seven assists.

Jrue Holiday added 19 points and seven assists.

Bobby Portis chipped in 13 points and eight rebounds.

The Bucks cut into what had been a 26-point Celtics lead in the third quarter.

Antetokounmpo keyed the charge with 18 points in the period.

A 10-0 Milwaukee run, aided by a more than fiveminute Celtics scoring drought, trimmed Boston’s lead to 72-56 late in the third quarter.

But Boston outscored the Bucks 11-10 the rest of the period to take an 83-66 advantage into the fourth.

Milwaukee kept nibbling away and got it down it to 94-82 on a pair of free throws by Antetokounmpo, followed by a 3 by Tatum.

The lead was back up to 101-86 when Antetokounmpo was stripped underneath the basket,

HERRO NBA’S SIXTH MAN OF THE YEAR

By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer

MILWAUKEE Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (34) tries to thread between Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown (7) and Payton Pritchard, right, in the first half of Game 2 of their Eastern Conference semifinal in the NBA basketball playoffs last night.

(AP Photo/Charles Krupa) leading to another 3 from Tatum.

Holiday missed a 3 on the other end and Grant Williams dropped his own on the ensuing fast break to make it 107-86 with 1:52 left.

With Smart looking in street clothes from the bench, the Celtics scored the game’s first seven points on their way to taking an 18-3 lead and forcing a quick timeout by the Bucks.

Boston scored from a variety of different spots on the court during the run – attacking both at the rim and inside the paint. It also

included 12 points from the 3-point line, where the Celtics struggled for most of Game 1.

Antetokounmpo missed his first six shots of the night before finally getting on the scoreboard via a dunk with less than a minute left in the opening period.

It didn’t stop Boston from banking a 32-21 lead heading into the second quarter, boosted by 17 points from Brown –a career playoff-high for a quarter.

The Celtics continued to share and kept Milwaukee’s defence in chase

mode, eventually taking a 65-40 edge into the half.

TIP-INS Bucks: Unsuccessfully challenged a loose ball foul on Antetokounmpo in the fourth quarter.

Portis was called for a flagrant 1 foul on Horford in the third quarter.

Antetokounmpo was 2 for 12 from the field in the first half. Milwaukee had nine turnovers in the first half.

Celtics: Tatum was whistled for a technical for arguing a call in the fourth quarter. Finished 13 of 20 from 3 in the first half... Were unsuccessful

in challenging blocking foul called on White in the second quarter, his third foul.

Boston scored 15 points off Milwaukee’s turnovers in the opening 24 minutes.

SMART’S STATUS Celtics coach Ime Udoka said Smart experienced some swelling, pain and restricted movement over the past two days. But the expectation is for him to be ready in time for Game 3.

“I don’t think it’s longterm,” Udoka said.

“With three days off we’re assuming he’ll be OK.”

MIAMI (AP) — Tyler Herro was told before the season began that he wouldn’t be in the Miami Heat starting lineup. To his credit, he saw that as an opportunity.

“I said, ‘Let’s go for Sixth Man of the Year,’” Herro said.

And that’s what he got.

Herro was announced yesterday as the NBA’s top sixth man this season, the first player to win the award as a member of the Heat.

He averaged 20.7 points, nearly four more per game than any other reserve in the league, plus had a huge role in Miami securing the No. 1 seed for the Eastern Conference playoffs.

“It means a lot,” Herro said. “I accepted the sixthman role for a reason. I wanted to be the best sixth man in the league.”

By overwhelming agreement of the 100 sportswriters and broadcasters who cover the league and vote on seasonending awards, that’s what Herro was. He received 96 first-place votes and 488 total points, well ahead of runner-up Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Cameron Johnson of the Phoenix Suns was third.

“Everyone who knows me knows I love Tyler Herro’s game (and swag) - much respect on an incredible 6th man campaign,” Love tweeted.

Love got three firstplace votes and 214 points in the system where players received five points for a first-place nod, three for second place and one for third. Johnson got one firstplace vote and 128 points.

“Tyler was ignitable for this team,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He was that way all season.”

Herro had eight 30-point games off the bench this season, more than any other three players did combined.

The last time a reserve had more than eight 30-point games was 2017-18, when Lou Williams had 11 for the Los Angeles Clippers.

Before that, it was 1989-90, when Ricky Pierce had 17 for Milwaukee.

Ja Morant scores 47 points, Grizzlies tie Warriors 1-1

By TERESA M WALKER AP Sports Writer MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Ja Morant scored 47 points to match his postseason high and carry the Memphis Grizzlies into a tie in the Western Conference semifinals with a 106-101 victory over the Golden State Warriors last night.

Morant scored the last 15 points for Memphis, starting with 4:16 left. He drove and turned around a defender before hitting a 7-foot jumper with 1:42 left to put Memphis ahead to stay at 100-99. He added four free throws and a 9-footer finishing with 18 in the fourth quarter.

The NBA’s Most Improved Player, who also had 47 in Game 2 against Utah last year, became only the third player in league history to have multiple 45-point games in the postseason before turning 23.

The other two? LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

Ziaire William hit four 3s and finished with 14 points off the bench. Jaren Jackson Jr scored 12 points before fouling out for the third time in eight games this postseason. Brandon Clarke added 10 points.

Now the youngest team to reach the semifinal round in the last 25 years heads

to San Francisco for Game 3 on Saturday night knowing the series will return to Memphis for Game 5.

Stephen Curry finished with 27 points on 3-of-11 shooting outside the arc.

Jordan Poole added 20 off the bench but was 1 of 6 from 3. Andrew Wiggins had 16, going 1 of 7 from 3. Klay Thompson finished with 12 points and was 2 of 12 from 3. The Warriors shot just 7 of 38 from 3-point range.

The Warriors, in the semifinals for the seventh time in 10 years, had their chances. Trailing 104-101, Curry passed to Green, who tossed it to Thompson, who travelled with 17 seconds left. Morant hit two free throws for the final margin.

The Grizzlies are coming off the franchise’s first series win in seven years.

But a team that was the NBA’s second-youngest squad during the regular season is trying to take Memphis past the second round, something this franchise has done only once back in 2013.

It didn’t get easier when Dillon Brooks, averaging 15 points this postseason and whose job was defending Curry, was ejected with 9:08 left in the first quarter after a hard foul on Warriors guard Gary Payton II. Payton went to the locker

MEMPHIS Grizzlies guard Ja Morant reacts after scoring during the second half of Game 2 of the team’s second-round NBA basketball playoff series against the Golden State Warriors last night.

(AP Photo/Brandon Dill) room for X-rays on his left elbow. He didn’t return.

Green, ejected from Game 1 for his own Flagrant 2, went down a couple minutes after Brooks’ ejection. He went to the locker room, flashing the middle digit on each hand at the fans. He returned for the second quarter after getting stitches for a cut at his right eye that was nearly swollen shut by halftime.

Memphis scored the first eight points of the game

and led 33-25 after the hectic first quarter with Morant scoring 14, Jackson 10. Curry had 11 for Golden State with Brooks in the locker room.

The second quarter got a bit sloppy at times with the Warriors going 2 of 11 outside the arc with five turnovers.

The Grizzlies led 56-51 at halftime with Morant scoring the final four points of the second for Memphis, giving him 23.

Curry and Poole fuelled a big third quarter in Game 1 combining for 23 points.

This time, Curry scored four points and Poole had six, but Golden State finished the third on a 13-3 run to tie it up at 77. Morant was hit in the face in the final seconds and went to the bench saying he couldn’t see out of his left eye.

Golden State took its first lead of the game within the opening minute of the

fourth on a layup by Poole, and the Warriors led by as much as 81-77.

Memphis answered with a 9-2 run capped by backto-back 3s from Williams, who missed the last two playoff games with a sore right knee.

TIP-INS Warriors: Now are 39-34 in Game 2s and 18-9 since the 2015 playoffs. ...

Thompson needed only one 3 to reach 400 for his career in the playoffs. He knocked that down with 7:16 left in the first quarter. ... They outrebounded Memphis matching their postseason high for a second straight game at 52-47.

Grizzlies: Morant snapped a streak of six straight double-doubles that made him the youngest in 30 years with that long a streak in one postseason. ... Jackson tied Zach Randolph for third on the franchise’s career blocks list in the postseason with his 24th a minute into the third quarter. ... They shot 14 of 45 from 3.

IN THE CROWD Michigan State coach Tom Izzo was at the game with three former Spartans in this game, including Warriors forward Draymond Green. Izzo posed for a photo before the game with Xavier Tillman Sr and Jackson.

PAGE 14, Wednesday, May 4, 2022

THE TRIBUNE

Ella Saidi 5th at Interscholastic Equestrian National Finals ELLA Saidi turned in a polished performance to finish 5th at the Interscholastic Equestrian Association National Finals in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where over 800 leading middle and high school equestrian athletes from across the United States converged this past weekend to compete for top honours in Hunt Seat, Western and Dressage classes, championship titles and collegiate scholarships.

Saidi made history as the first Bahamian rider to make it through the gruelling qualification process to IEA National Finals. That journey began in 2020 when the Bahamas Interscholastic Equestrian League (BIEL) became affiliated with the US-based IEA. Both organisations share the goal of providing opportunities for youth equestrians to compete at local, regional and national levels without the expense of owning a horse. The Bahamas is now Region 13 of IEA Zone 4, which also encompasses Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

Showing in the Future Intermediate Over Fences Individual class, Saidi competed throughout the

season to finish as the top performer in her division locally. She then advanced to represent Region 13 at the Zone 4 Finals in Tryon, North Carolina, where a 2nd place finish secured her a qualification spot to the National Finals in Harrisburg.

At the Finals Saidi proved herself up to the task, placing 5th out of a field of 18 by successfully navigating a technically challenging course that included special features such as rollbacks, bending lines and an option fence, designed to test a rider’s skill, judgment, and control of the horse. In IEA competition riders compete on borrowed horses and get just two practice jumps before entering the ring – a format that mirrors collegiate competition and tests the rider’s horsemanship.

Saidi’s equine partner in the ring was “Richie”, a 17.1 grey warmblood gelding owned by Serenity Farms. Saidi, aged 14, was coached at the ringside by her local trainer, Erika Adderley of Mariposa Stables, who was effusive in her praise of Saidi’s performance. “I’m thrilled that all her hard work and dedication culminated in her ribbon win,” said Adderley.

LIVERPOOL SURVIVES SCARE, ADVANCES TO CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL

ELLA SAIDI, right, with her trainer Erika Adderley of Mariposa Stables. Saidi finished 5th overall in the Future Intermediate Over Fences Individual class at the IEA National Finals in Pennsylvania.

Trainer Asmussen seeks Derby breakthrough with Epicenter

By GARY B GRAVES AP Sports Writer LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Steve Asmussen is caught off guard when asked about his achievements, mainly because he’s too focused on training horses to reflect.

And the fun he’s had doing so keeps him driven to attain more success.

Such as winning his first Kentucky Derby to add to a résumé that includes Triple Crown victories in the Preakness (twice) and Belmont Stakes. Having seen a signature moment painfully slip away in the stretch at Churchill Downs in 2011, the 56-year-old smiled when reminiscing about the close call that keeps him motivated to chase racing’s signature jewel.

“I’ve said that I know what it feels like to think you’re going to win it while it’s running,” he said, recalling Nehro being within reach of leader Shackleford 11 years ago before Animal Kingdom overtook both in the stretch for the victory.

“When it was running, I didn’t pick up visually Animal Kingdom coming. Watching the race at the one-eighth pole, I thought he (Nehro) was about to win the Derby, you know? So, I’ve had unbelievably thrilling moments without the trophy.”

North America’s winningest trainer (9,727 victories entering Tuesday) and two-time Eclipse Award winner goes for that milestone victory Saturday after two second-place finishes and two thirds in 23 Derby starts. Yet his long, storied career has been tainted by allegations of animal abuse.

The New York State Gaming Commission fined Asmussen $10,000 in November 2015 for administering the hormone thyroxine to horses at Saratoga within 48 hours of racing, a violation of state regulations. His discipline followed an undercover probe and video

by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that accused the

VILLARREAL, Spain (AP) — Liverpool players stared at each other in disbelief. By the bench, manager Jürgen Klopp watched in awe.

Just like that, Liverpool had squandered its twogoal lead from the first leg of the Champions League semifinals against Villarreal, and its spot in the final was suddenly in jeopardy.

Would Liverpool be the latest powerhouse to be stunned by the modest Spanish club? Would its bid for a seventh European title end in disappointment?

Luckily for the English club, it was only a scare.

Liverpool rallied in the second half to defeat Villarreal 3-2 and reach its third Champions League final in five seasons yesterday.

It advanced 5-2 on aggregate at the La Cerámica Stadium.

“You could see how impressed we were with them in the first half,” said Klopp, who will be making his fourth Champions League final appearance as coach, joint-most with Miguel Muñoz, Alex Ferguson, Carlo Ancelotti and Marcello Lippi. “To come back and win in the second is really impressive.”

After Boulaye Dia and Francis Coquelin put Villarreal ahead by the 41st minute, Fabinho, substitute Luis Díaz and Sadio Mané scored in the second half to propel Liverpool into the final for the first time since winning its sixth European title in 2019. It will be Liverpool’s 10th final in Europe’s top club competition.

Based in a city of 50,000 people in southern Spain, Villarreal had eliminated Juventus in the round of 16 and Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals.

Unai Emery’s team played a man down from the 86th after Étienne Capoue, who assisted on both Villarreal’s goals, was sent off with a second yellow card.

Liverpool will play the May 28 final in Paris against either Premier League rival Manchester City or 13-time European champion Real Madrid. They will meet today in Madrid with City defending a 4-3 win from the first leg in England.

The victory also keeps alive Liverpool’s hopes of a “ quadruple “ — winning all four major trophies in one season.

LUCIUS

FROM PAGE 11

EPICENTER is bathed by groom Fernando Ramirez, left, as barn foreman Julio Villaseca holds his reins after his timed workout at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., on Sunday.

(Grace Ramey/Daily News via AP) trainer and workers of mistreating bunched in a pack before the first what makes Steve different, and horses. Other more serious abuse turn. there’s no stone left unturned with allegations against Asmussen Asmussen points to Epicenter’s him.” lodged by the animal rights group growth during impressive victoFour-time Derby-winning were unfounded, the commission ries in the Risen Star Stakes and trainer D. Wayne Lukas added: decided, before enacting drug Louisiana Derby. Not to men- “He is just too good a horseman to rule changes. The trainer felt that tion consistent training runs since not get one. outcome vindicated his care for arriving at Churchill Downs in “This year, I think he quietly horses. mid-April. His unbeaten filly Echo feels like he’s got the best chance “If anything, it proved that we Zulu is a 4-1 third choice in Fri- so far.” follow the rules,” Asmussen said. day’s Kentucky Oaks, positioning No matter the outcome on Sat“It erased any criticism of us going Asmussen for a potential sweep if urday, Asmussen simply will look forward.” everything falls right. forward to what the next race The Texas-based trainer who Even before the draw, Epicent- brings. That approach is why he was inducted into racing’s Hall of er’s co-owner, Ron Winchell, said recalls disappointments fondly and Fame in 2016 is optimistic about Winchell Thoroughbreds’ longtime downplays the accolades, neither Epicenter’s Derby prospects this trainer was leaving nothing up to of which matter when there are weekend, even as the 7-2 second chance. “I’ve never seen a trainer more races to run. choice behind favourite Zandon that has an attention to detail “You have a bad week or a bad (3-1). that he has,” Winchell said, citing run or a bad month, you still get The colt’s odds are due to his Asmussen familiarising the horse to line up even,” Asmussen said. draw of the No. 3 post position — with the 20-horse starting gate.

“You win four or five in a row, which has yielded just five winners “You don’t want them to be you’re not going to get a head start. since the starting gate was imple- there for the first time on Derby “On this day, this moment, you mented in 1930 — that challenges day looking around and seeing prove it, and people talking about the Derby trail points leader to what’s new around them,” what’s going on has zero bearing. break quickly to avoid being Winchell said. “Stuff like that is You’ve got to do it again.”

Meanwhile, Sánchez is going to need additional rehab to recover from the cervical nerve impingement that led to his being placed on the injured list on April 11. Martinez said he won’t start on a throwing regimen until he’s pain-free.

“He’s getting better but it’s going to take him a while to get back into that starting role as a pitcher where he’s got to build himself back up.” Martinez said.

“He’s going to have to have spring training all over again because he’s got himself so far behind. My big concern with him is making sure that he is 100% healthy. Once he’s pain-free he can start throwing again and getting ready to come up here and help us win games.”

Fox, a top Nationals prospect, made his major league debut April 10 and appeared in 10 games for the Nationals. Martinez said he will benefit from increased playing time and at-bats at Rochester.

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PAGE 16, Wednesday, May 4, 2022

THE TRIBUNE

COVERT FAMGUARD RECORDING ‘INADMISSIBLE’ ON BABY DEATH FROM PAGE 20 As a result, he ruled that both the recording and a transcript of what was said cannot be used as evidence during the full Supreme Court trial, which was due to have been held at the end of April 2022. Given that both Mrs Major and Mr Ritchie had referred to the meeting and what was discussed in their statements,

Justice Klein said both sides would have the opportunity to cross-examine each other on what happened.

Mrs Major is suing the BISX-listed insurer for alleged “negligence and breach of statutory duty” over how it handled her request to work from home due to the difficult pregnancy that she was enduring. Justice Klein’s judgment revealed that she

lost the unborn child that same night after the meeting with Mr Ritchie.

“The litigation context is a claim by an insurance executive against the defendant company which employed her, in which she alleges negligence and breach of statutory duty in the way in which the company responded to her request to work from home during a difficult pregnancy

in early 2019,” Justice Klein recorded.

“She claims the actions of the defendant contributed to the intrauterine death of the child. The meeting which is the subject of the audio recording in question was one of several meetings and other engagements with senior management to discuss options for accommodating the plaintiff’s request to work from home.

“This was based on medical advice which the plaintiff received from her primary obstetrician after experiencing complications during the pregnancy. The meeting took place on the July 31, 2019. As events turned out, the plaintiff tragically experienced the death of the child later that same evening.”

Mrs Major was said to have been advised by her husband, Terrell Karson Major, to record the meeting with Mr Ritchie. She argued “that she recorded the meeting for her personal use because she feared that her state of mind might not have recalled the contents of the meeting, which she thought was ‘crucially important to her and her family’.

“She says that the recording is relevant and has probative value for her claims, in that it demonstrates that at the meeting the defendant demonstrated little or no regard for her health and welfare,” Justice Klein added. He said Mrs Major subsequently had “a long period of absence from the company”, and it did not appear that she ever returned to work for it.

Justice Klein said “there is no dispute” that the meeting was recorded without Mr Ritchie’s knowledge and consent. A court stenographer had transcribed the conversation, and Mrs Major and her attorney, Lady Sharon Wilson QC, had sought to have it admitted as evidence. Not surprisingly, Family Guardian, represented by Robert Adams QC, objected and sought to bar its use.

Lady Wilson sought to argue that the Interception of Communications Act did not forbid the recording of a private conversation by one of the parties involved. She asserted that it fell under the Act’s “exceptions” that permit wider disclosure and publication, while the law also the contents to be disclosed by someone giving evidence if this had been brought to their attention.

“Therefore, it is argued that a mental health psychologist whom the plaintiff attended in the aftermath of the incident, and to whom she disclosed either the recording or the substance of the conversation, should be able to give evidence of it,” Justice Klein said of the position taken by Lady Wilson.

However, Mr Adams argued that the only “exception” which the meeting’s recording could fall under was one that was necessary for “the protection of the lawful interest of the plaintiff”. And Family Guardian’s attorney rejected the notion that it was covered by this.

Backing Mr Adams’ arguments, Justice Klein rejected “the notion that the psychologist to whom evidence of the conversation was communicated had any interest in the private conversation to justify divulging it to him”. And, as a result, the meeting’s recording did not fall within the “exceptions” granted by the Interception of Communications Act for wider disclosure and publication.

The judge also agreed with Mr Adams that the Act was not intended to allow for evidence to be admissible when one side is seeking to obtain evidence through a third party based on consent. “Were it otherwise, a party could always orchestrate the use of evidence derived from a listening device obtained or disclosed in direct contravention of the Act by simply purporting to give consent to a third party,” Justice Klein said.

“This would drive a horse-and-carriage through the very mischief which the Act intends to address - the unjustified invasion of privacy that could be occasioned by the unauthorised use of surveillance and listening devices, and prohibiting or restricting the use of any evidence obtained as a result of such conduct.”

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NOTICE

NOTICE is hereby given that SHAWN MORRISON CLARKE of 17 Cornwallis Place Freeport, Grand Bahama, Bahamas is applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for Registration Naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 4th day of May, 2022 tothe Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas.

NOTICE

NOTICE is hereby given that MACKDALENE APPLISE of Yellow Elde, New Providence, The Bahamas is applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for Registration Naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/ naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 27th day of April, 2022 tothe Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas.

LOT FOR SALE VENICE BAY Lot #9 in Block #10 GATED COMMUNITY 10,000 SQ FT WITH FOUNDATION

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THE TRIBUNE

Wednesday, May 4, 2022, PAGE 17

NIB LOSING ‘TENS OF MILLIONS’ OVER DELINQUENT EMPLOYERS FROM PAGE 20 part of it. Twenty years ago, if you’re saying the fund will be depleted in 2029, you’re talking about 20-plus years down the road. Now you’re talking about less than ten. So the urgency is there.”

Many Bahamians, and especially those approaching retirement age at around 65 years-old, will need NIB’s long-term sustainability to be secured as its pension payments will be the only benefits they

receive. Mr Laroda said that while NIB’s investment portfolio was performing, and delivering multi-million dollar annual returns, even this income was insufficient to cover the gap caused by the fact that benefit payouts now exceed contribution income annually.

NIB’s 2017 annual report, the last to be publicly disclosed, revealed that the year’s $277.5m contributions were exceeded by $286.5m in benefit payouts. The same occurred the previous year, when

$275.2m in benefits overshadowed $261.2m in contributions.

NIB’s income only remained positive as a result of earnings on its investment portfolio.

NIB’s present reality was predicted more than two decades ago by its seventh actuarial review, completed in 2001, which forecast that “reserves are projected to become exhausted” by 2029 if comprehensive reforms are not implemented to address the fundamental problem of benefit payouts exceeding contribution

‘WE BURIED HATCHET’ OVER RETAIL CLOSURE FROM PAGE 20 [stock] shortages. There were high expenses and lack of volume. We’re going to pick up most of the sales that they were getting.”

Bed, Bath and Home had been a presence at Harbour Bay’s East Bay Street shopping plaza for many years, situated between Domino’s Pizza and John Bull. While not giving any figures on the extent of the losses, or how many staff were impacted, Mr Roberts said just one worker had transferred to Super Value upon the closure.

While this switch had been offered to all Bed, Bath and Home employees, he added: “After they knew

we were closing, they found jobs elsewhere. They didn’t stay. I think there was only one that stayed with us.

We could have used them in the health and beauty sections and non-food merchandise.”

Mr Roberts also suggested that Harbour Bay has “a parking problem” with insufficient spaces to meet demand, adding that when he visited Bed, Bath and Home he frequently struggled to find somewhere to leave his vehicle.

“My son had opened it. I have been urging my son for years to close it,” the Super Value chief said of Bed, Bath and Home.

It was losing too much to keep open, and every

time I told my son to close it he said: ‘Let’s give it until Christmas, let’s give it until Easter. It was his baby and he didn’t want to close it.

“It wasn’t serious losses; it just wasn’t making anything. Why put out that effort? We were so successful in the supermarket business; let it go. It was distracting my son from the Super Value business. He’s good at supervision, and it took him away from Super Value to tend to that. There were so many reasons not to fight the closure.”

Super Value performed accounting and administrative functions for Bed, Bath and Home, but Mr Roberts said they were “having to

income. The recipient of that review, which was only one year out, on September 11, 2002, was then-NIB chairman and now-Prime Minister, Philip Davis QC. Now, with just six years left to the NIB Fund’s total depletion, the magnitude of the correction will be that much more severe for businesses and workers already grappling with surging inflation, COVID recovery, rising gas prices and a potential minimum wage increase. Private sector executives described the

prospect of NIB contribution hikes as a “double” or even “quadruple whammy” for a business community still fighting for “survival.

Yet there was also an acknowledgement that NIB cannot be allowed to fail, given that for thousands of Bahamians it represents a key source of retirement savings (pensions) while also ensuring that others remain above the poverty line through the provision of unemployment, sickness, industrial accident,

maternity and death/ funeral benefits.

NIB contributions, which take the form of a payroll tax, are currently split 3.9 percent/5.9 percent between employee and employer, respectively.

They have seen only one increase this century, when the combined rate rose from 8.8 percent to the present 9.8 percent in 2010.

Any new rate hikes, besides increasing business costs, will also cut into employee take-home pay and disposable income just when they are facing heightened inflation.

stay behind it” constantly to obtain regular financial statements, reports and inventory counts on the latter.

Given all these concerns, he added that Bed, Bath and Home was allowed to stay open through Christmas and close at the end of January. Taylor Industries, the former electrical retailer and contractor, followed a similar strategy with its closure, while Galleria Cinemas and the Outback Steakhouse also closed their doors earlier this year.

However, Mr Roberts struck an optimistic tone on the Bahamian economy’s near-term prospects with ever-recovering tourism demand set to keep soaring inflation at bay in the shortterm. “The economy seems

to be picking up. I hear the hotels talking about being back at or near 2019 figures and so on,” he told Tribune Business. “I think we’re going to be getting close to that.

“The consumers, after they all go back to work

and pay their bills, they can budget better and pay the higher prices for food, catch up with school fees and payments for fuel.” However, headwinds and risks to the Bahamian economy’s continued recovery progress remain.

LEGAL NOTICE

LEGAL NOTICE

NOTICE

NOTICE

CASTLEREA HOLDINGS INC

MAGRIC HOLDINGS LIMITED

Company No. 1606572 (In Voluntary Liquidation)

In Voluntary Liquidation

Notice is hereby given that in accordance with Section 138(4) of the International Business Companies Act. 2000, MAGRIC HOLDINGS LIMITED is in dissolution as of April 26th, 2022.

NOTICE is hereby given pursuant to Section 204 (1) (b) of the BVI Business Companies Act, 2004 that CASTLEREA HOLDINGS INC is in voluntary liquidation. The voluntary liquidation commenced on 22nd March 2022 and Heinrich Rüdisühli, of Brandschenkestrasse 24, 8927 Zurich, Switzerland has been appointed as the Sole Liquidator.

International Liquidator Services Ltd. situated at 3rd Floor Whitfield Tower, 4792 Coney Drive, Belize City, Belize is the Liquidator.

LIQUIDATOR ______________________

Dated this 23rd day of March 2022 Sgd. Heinrich Rüdisühli Voluntary Liquidator

MARKET REPORT www.bisxbahamas.com

TUESDAY, 3 MAY 2022

BISX ALL SHARE INDEX: BISX LISTED & TRADED SECURITIES 52WK HI 6.70 53.00 2.05 2.90 2.60 6.05 10.05 3.50 9.02 3.10 8.00 14.00 2.71 10.25 11.25 10.75 15.00 4.10 10.00 16.50

52WK LOW 4.75 32.12 1.46 2.20 1.30 5.50 6.96 2.82 4.25 2.27 5.90 9.75 1.99 6.50 10.02 9.01 13.10 3.50 8.00 15.50

SECURITY AML Foods Limited APD Limited Benchmark Bahamas First Holdings Limited Bank of Bahamas Bahamas Property Fund Bahamas Waste Cable Bahamas Commonwealth Brewery Commonwealth Bank Colina Holdings CIBC FirstCaribbean Bank Consolidated Water BDRs Doctor's Hospital Emera Incorporated Famguard Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) Limited Focol Finco J. S. Johnson

PREFERENCE SHARES 1.00

1.00

1000.00 1000.00 1000.00 1000.00

1000.00 1000.00 1000.00 1000.00

1.00 10.00 1.00

1.00 10.00 1.00

Bahamas First Holdings Preference Cable Bahamas Series 6 Cable Bahamas Series 8 Cable Bahamas Series 9 Cable Bahamas Series 10 Colina Holdings Class A Fidelity Bank Bahamas Class A Focol Class B

CORPORATE DEBT - (percentage pricing) 52WK HI 100.00 100.00

52WK LOW 100.00 100.00

SECURITY Fidelity Bank (Note 22 Series B+) Bahamas First Holdings Limited

CLOSE

CHANGE

%CHANGE

YTD

YTD%

2283.00

4.55

0.20

54.76

2.46

SYMBOL AML APD BBL BFH BOB BPF BWL CAB CBB CBL CHL CIB CWCB DHS EMAB FAM FBB FCL FIN JSJ BFHP CAB6 CAB8 CAB9 CAB10 CHLA FBBA FCLB SYMBOL FBB22 BFHB

BAHAMAS GOVERNMENT STOCK - (percentage pricing) 115.92 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.54 99.98 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.98 100.00

104.79 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 90.76 100.00 99.98 91.00 90.95 89.02 89.62 89.00 90.24 90.73

MUTUAL FUNDS 52WK HI 2.52 4.69 2.22 207.86 212.41 1.73 1.83 1.82 1.05 9.37 11.83 7.54 16.64 12.84 10.77 10.00 10.43 14.89

52WK LOW 2.11 3.30 1.68 164.74 116.70 1.68 1.73 1.75 0.99 6.41 7.62 5.66 8.65 10.54 9.57 9.88 8.45 11.20

Bahamas Note 6.95 (2029) BGS: 2014-12-7Y BGS: 2015-1-7Y BGS: 2014-12-30Y BGS: 2015-1-30Y BGS: 2015-6-7Y BGS: 2015-6-30Y BGS: 2015-10-7Y BGRS FX BGR134150 BGRS FL BGRS79026 BGRS FL BGRS78024 BGRS FX BGR125238 BGRS FX BGR127139 BGRS FX BGR127149 BGRS FX BGR129249 BGRS FX BGR131249 BGRS FX BGR132249 BGRS FX BGR136150

BAH29 BG0107 BG0207 BG0130 BG0230 BG0307 BG0330 BG0407 BSBGR1341506 BSBGRS790262 BSBGRS780248 BSBGR1252380 BSBGR1271398 BSBGR1271497 BSBGR1292493 BSBGR1312499 BSBGR1322498 BSBGR1361504

LAST CLOSE 5.35 39.95 2.04 2.31 2.25 6.05 9.25 3.25 7.52 2.67 7.34 14.00 2.13 10.25 11.70 10.75 15.00 3.99 10.00 15.50 1.00 1000.00 1000.00 1000.00 1000.00 1.00 10.00 1.00 LAST SALE 100.00 100.00 107.31 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.54 99.98 100.00 100.00 100.00 89.62 100.00 100.00 100.00

CLOSE 5.35 39.95 2.04 2.31 2.25 6.05 9.25 3.25 7.52 2.65 8.00 14.00 2.13 10.25 11.61 10.75 15.00 3.99 10.00 15.50 1.00 1000.00 1000.00 1000.00 1000.00 1.00 10.00 1.00

BISX ALL SHARE INDEX - 19 Dec 02 = 1,000.00 52wk-Hi - Highest closing price in last 52 weeks 52wk-Low - Lowest closing price in last 52 weeks Previous Close - Previous day's weighted price for daily volume Today's Close - Current day's weighted price for daily volume Change - Change in closing price from day to day Daily Vol. - Number of total shares traded today DIV $ - Dividends per share paid in the last 12 months P/E - Closing price divided by the last 12 month earnings

VOLUME 165

1,212 3,818 1,000

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

CLOSE 100.00 100.00

CHANGE 0.00 0.00

107.31 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 90.79 100.54 99.98 100.00 100.00 89.08 89.62 100.00 100.00 100.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 (9.21) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 (10.92) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

FUND CFAL Bond Fund CFAL Balanced Fund CFAL Money Market Fund CFAL Global Bond Fund CFAL Global Equity Fund Leno Financial Conservative Fund Leno Financial Aggressive Fund Leno Financial Balanced Fund Leno Financial Global Bond Fund RF Bahamas Opportunities Fund - Secured Balanced Fund RF Bahamas Opportunities Fund - Targeted Equity Fund RF Bahamas Opportunities Fund - Prime Income Fund RF Bahamas International Investment Fund Limited - Equities Sub Fund RF Bahamas International Investment Fund Limited - High Yield Income Fund RF Bahamas International Investment Fund Limited - Alternative Strategies Fund Colonial Bahamas Fund Class D Colonial Bahamas Fund Class E Colonial Bahamas Fund Class F

MARKET TERMS

CHANGE 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 (0.02) 0.66 0.00 0.00 0.00 (0.09) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

(242) 323‐2330 (242) 323‐2320 EPS$ 0.239 0.932 0.000 0.140 0.070 1.760 0.369 -0.438 0.140 0.184 0.449 0.722 0.102 0.467 0.646 0.728 0.816 0.203 0.939 0.631 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

VOLUME

950

1,000

NAV 2.52 4.69 2.21 197.44 202.39 1.73 1.82 1.82 0.99 9.37 11.79 7.54 15.94 12.47 10.74 N/A 10.43 14.89

DIV$ 0.170 1.260 0.020 0.080 0.000 0.000 0.260 0.000 0.000 0.120 0.220 0.720 0.434 0.060 0.328 0.240 0.540 0.120 0.200 0.610 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

INTEREST Prime + 1.75% 6.25% 6.95% 4.50% 4.50% 6.25% 6.25% 4.50% 6.25% 4.25% 5.00% 4.53% 4.50% 5.00% 5.00% 5.50% 5.55% 5.60% 5.65% 5.69% YTD% 12 MTH% 0.99% 4.22% 0.36% 5.78% 0.67% 2.74% -2.97% -2.35% -4.72% 6.04% 0.83% 2.82% -0.18% 3.72% 0.76% 3.55% -3.55% -3.85% -0.02% 10.36% -0.33% 18.23% 0.22% 3.05% -3.89% 14.76% -1.04% -2.57% 0.81% 4.20% N/A N/A 3.00% 25.60% 7.90% 48.70%

P/E 22.4 42.9 N/M 16.5 N/M N/M 25.1 -7.4 53.7 14.4 17.8 19.4 20.9 21.9 18.0 14.8 18.4 19.7 10.6 24.6 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

YIELD 3.18% 3.15% 0.98% 3.46% 0.00% 0.00% 2.81% 0.00% 0.00% 4.53% 2.75% 5.14% 20.38% 0.59% 2.83% 2.23% 3.60% 3.01% 2.00% 3.94% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 6.25% 7.00% 6.50%

MATURITY 19-Oct-2022 30-Sep-2025 20-Nov-2029 15-Dec-2021 30-Jul-2022 15-Dec-2044 30-Jul-2045 26-Jun-2022 26-Jun-2045 15-Oct-2022 15-Oct-2038 28-Mar-2026 22-Sep-2024 15-Oct-2038 15-Jan-2039 15-Jan-2049 15-Apr-2049 15-Jul-2049 15-Oct-2049 21-Apr-2050

NAV Date 31-Mar-2022 31-Mar-2022 25-Mar-2022 31-Mar-2022 31-Mar-2022 31-Mar-2022 31-Mar-2022 31-Mar-2022 31-Mar-2022 31-Jan-2022 31-Jan-2022 31-Jan-2022 31-Jan-2022 31-Jan-2022 31-Jan-2022 31-Mar-2021 31-Mar-2021 31-Mar-2021

YIELD - last 12 month dividends divided by closing price Bid $ - Buying price of Colina and Fidelity Ask $ - Selling price of Colina and fidelity Last Price - Last traded over-the-counter price Weekly Vol. - Trading volume of the prior week EPS $ - A company's reported earnings per share for the last 12 mths NAV - Net Asset Value N/M - Not Meaningful

TO TRADE CALL: CFAL 242-502-7010 | ROYALFIDELITY 242-356-7764 | CORALISLE 242-502-7525 | LENO 242-396-3225 | BENCHMARK 242-326-7333

PAGE 18, Wednesday, May 4, 2022

THE TRIBUNE

ONE THOUSAND GOV’T STAFF TO BE PERMANENT

By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A Cabinet minister yesterday said the Government is aiming to make 1,000 public sector workers permanent and pensionable, having set aside $2m to cover back pay owed to civil servants.

Pia Glover-Rolle, minister of state for the public service, told media prior to the weekly Cabinet meeting that the Davis administration has now completed 206 promotions for Customs officers and is “eagerly” waiting

to complete the balance of those outstanding.

“I want you to know that, of course, simultaneously, the technical teams at the ministry, as well as the special task force that has been implemented to assist with the [promotions] backlog, are working constantly,” she said. “So, yes, we’re still working on Customs.

We’re working on about six or seven other government agencies. Civil servants are getting letters, increments and back pay every week.

I’m very happy about it.

The civil servants are happy about it.

“While this is happening, we’re working in tandem with the trade unions through our labour

relations unit. A lot of our union industrial agreements are about to expire; we’re in negotiations. Most of it is financial. So the Ministry of Public Service’s technical team, and the Ministry of Finance’s technical team, are working together to get those matters solved as quickly as we can.”

Mrs Glover-Rolle said she was “not sure” if the $2m earmarked to satisfy monies owed to civil servants will be exhausted. “We’re still in an analog system; still working to figure out how we will digitise by working as quickly as we can, but matters are rolling out,” she added. “We’re also working on ensuring that

civil servants that are temporary, month-to-month, in some instances for decades, we’ve put together an analysis of that. It’s a little under 1,000 persons.

“We’re looking to ensure that we bring them over to the establishment, which is permanent and pensionable. We’re doing an analysis on our contributory pension plan that we will introduce. So Public Service is working. The technical team at the Ministry of Public Service is hardworking. They’re doing a great job with getting the backlogs done, and I’m sure once we implement our digitisation system we’ll be able to move even more efficiently.”

Mrs Glover-Rolle said errors in the public service salary scale introduced in 2016 are also being addressed, with the JD Edwards payroll system needing to reflect these adjustments. “There was a disparity there,” she added.

“The book has finally been completed because so many persons have been waiting for their situations in terms of their pay, their increments to be adjusted.

“Because the book was not in line with the system, it couldn’t happen. So that has been completed.

The ministry, through our permanent secretary, has released a circular to advise, and the unions are also aware now that

NEW NAD FEES HAILED AS ‘LOT LESS ONEROUS’

FROM PAGE 20

with NAD to inform the new fee which became effective Sunday, May 1, 2022,” she said in response to Tribune Business inquiries.

“The variation of aviation fees at LPIA is a prescribed process and it is very collaborative between the airport and aviation stakeholders...... The Airport Infrastructure Improvement Fee will assist NAD’s efforts to make the necessary infrastructural improvements that will primarily benefit the general aviation sector over time.”

The fee schedule unveiled by NAD splits the private aviation market in two between aircraft with piston engines and those with jet engines. There are nine different weight bands for the two categories, with the lightest planes those weighing up to 3,000 pounds - paying $10 and $15

per landing, respectively, for piston and jet aircraft.

Those planes weighing over 100,001 pounds will pay $140 if they have piston engines, and $360 if they are a jet, at the top-end.

This levy, which applies to international private aviation traffic only, is in addition to the existing landing charge incurred at LPIA. Mr Gardner, a Bahamian who is a member of The Bahamas Civil Aviation Council as well as a Bahamas Flying Ambassador, praised NAD’s changes as something that the private aviation market will likely accept and adjust to.

“I just know the impact of these fees, which are obviously a lot less onerous than what was to be put in place originally,” he told Tribune Business. “The Bahamas is a sovereign country, and the airport has a legitimate right to do what they need.

Everyone is fine with it. I don’t find it as onerous as

what they were originally proposing. I don’t see it as a major, huge issue.”

Mr Gardner likened the original fee proposal’s impact to raising the bar in the high jump event in track and field, pointing out that every time the bar was raised it deterred more persons from competing and trying to reach that height.

In similar fashion, NAD’s per passenger-based fee could have deterred private aviation traffic from coming to New Providence and the wider Bahamas.

He explained that the private aviation industry has “two sides” and cannot be viewed “through the same lense”. The first he described as the corporate and private jets, which were used as “a means to an end” by their high net worth and company owners who could justify the high costs because of the urgency with which they needed to travel and attend meetings.

The second, Mr Gardner said, was those pilots and aircraft owners who use their planes “as the end”. He explained: “That same pilot is going to The Bahamas because of the adventure. They’re typically adventurers. The aircraft is an end; it’s not a means to an end. The challenge becomes that when you go out, you want to go where you feel wanted.

“I’ve heard this so many times when a particular airport or country puts in fees. They’re not stupid.

They’ll say: ‘We’ll just fly to the Dominican Republic’.

You’ll say: ‘Wait a minute.

You’ll burn more in fuel to fly to the Dominican Republic.’ They will reply: ‘I know, but it’s the principle. If I go to your country, spend $350 per night on a room, spend money on a car rental and diving. Look at all the money I’ve put into your country, and you want another $50 out of me?’”

NOTICE

NOTICE

IKDE LIMITED

BUONA INVESTMENTS LIMITED

N O T I C E IS HEREBY GIVEN as follows:

N O T I C E IS HEREBY GIVEN as follows:

(a) IKDE LIMITED in voluntary dissolution under the provisions of Section 138 (4) of the International Business Companies Act 2000.

(a) BUONA INVESTMENTS LIMITED in voluntary dissolution under the provisions of Section 138 (4) of the International Business Companies Act 2000.

(b) The dissolution of the said company commenced on the 2nd May, 2022 when the Articles of Dissolution were submitted to and registered by the Registrar General. (c) The Liquidator of the said company is Bukit Merah Limited, The Bahamas Financial Centre, Shirley & Charlotte Streets, P.O. Box N-3023, Nassau, Bahamas.

Dated this 4th day of May 2022. _________________________________ Bukit Merah Limited Liquidator

(b) The dissolution of the said company commenced on the 2nd May, 2022 when the Articles of Dissolution were submitted to and registered by the Registrar General. (c) The Liquidator of the said company is Bukit Merah Limited, The Bahamas Financial Centre, Shirley & Charlotte Streets, P.O. Box N-3023, Nassau, Bahamas.

Dated this 4th day of May 2022. _________________________________ Bukit Merah Limited Liquidator

Mr Gardner said this was an illustration of just how fickle the private aviation market can be. With 70 percent of private aircraft piston engines, he added that most pilots also owned their own planes. And, with aircraft being an expensive asset to own, the sector is the total opposite of the volume-based cruise business as its participants are typically wealthy, higher spending and yielding, guests that can spread their impact across all islands.

“These guys, when their feet start touching the ground, pump money into the economy,” Mr Gardner said. “They don’t want to go to the RIU, they don’t want to go to Baha Mar. They want to go to Stella Maris in Long Island. Not only do they bring their own means of transportation, they have good disposable income....

“What you were going to lose was not the $28 fee, but the thousands of dollars they’re going to pump into the Bahamian economy because of the lodging, the food, the rental cars.

Because they have the flexibility they can distribute it throughout the country instead of being concentrated in New Providence.

“My example is the high jump bar. The higher goes the bar, the fewer people are willing to jump. What The Bahamas has done wisely for many years is

ADVERTISE TODAY! CALL THE TRIBUNE TODAY @ 502-2394

the salary book has been adjusted and the system to match.

“There will be some training with the finance officers to ensure that, over the course of the next month or two, there will be amelioration of financial matters in line with the salary book,” Mrs GloverRolle added. “That will mean some people will be expecting payments, some people may have been overpaid, but all of those things will be ameliorated within the next few months.

“Everybody will be on an even keel, and on the pay scale that they should be in, and the pay grade that they should be at.” set the bar low. You need to look at the bigger picture.” Mr Gardner added that airports and their fees/ financing strategies cannot be viewed in isolation, but as part of a wider plan when it comes to keeping this country “head and shoulders” above all others in private aviation.

He pointed to the private aircraft fees being charged on Norman’s Cay in the Exumas, where the inter-island and international landing fees were set at $162 and $1,261 respectively. To park a plane there currently costs $99 per night, Mr Gardner added.

The Bahamas’ private aviation traffic and business volumes have been “rocking and rolling” for 2022 to-date, he added, exceeding 2019 levels. “It’s been way up everywhere. It’s big over last year. It’s already over 2019,” Mr Gardner said.

However, he warned that the industry is becoming increasingly competitive with other Caribbean nations eager to grow their market share.

The Dominican Republic, Turks & Caicos and Aruba all had a significant presence at the recent Florida-based private aviation conference and exhibition, Sun N’ Fun. “The Bahamas has such a great position and done so much that those of us passionate about flying and The Bahamas, we’re going to do everything we can to attract and market and speak up if we feel something is not a good idea, and say: ‘This is why’,” Mr Gardner said.

NOTICE MYNDEL BOTANICA LIMITED N O T I C E IS HEREBY GIVEN as follows: (a) MYNDEL BOTANICA LIMITED in voluntary dissolution under the provisions of Section 138 (4) of the International Business Companies Act 2000. (b) The dissolution of the said company commenced on the 2nd May, 2022 when the Articles of Dissolution were submitted to and registered by the Registrar General. (c) The Liquidator of the said company is CST Administration (Bahamas) Limited, Shirley and Charlotte Streets, Nassau, Bahamas.

Dated this 4th day of May, A. D. 2022. _____________________________________ CST Administration (Bahamas) Limited Liquidator

NOTICE MEDWAY HOLDINGS LIMITED N O T I C E IS HEREBY GIVEN as follows: (a) MEDWAY HOLDINGS LIMITED in voluntary dissolution under the provisions of Section 138 (4) of the International Business Companies Act 2000. (b) The dissolution of the said company commenced on the 2nd May, 2022 when the Articles of Dissolution were submitted to and registered by the Registrar General. (c) The Liquidator of the said company is Bukit Merah Limited, The Bahamas Financial Centre, Shirley & Charlotte Streets, P.O. Box N-3023, Nassau, Bahamas.

Dated this 4th day of May 2022. _________________________________ Bukit Merah Limited Liquidator

THE TRIBUNE

Wednesday, May 4, 2022, PAGE 19

‘ENTRENCHED REDUCTION?’: BAD LOANS DOWN $22M FROM PAGE 20 reports is not assured until all of the important providers are on board, including credit unions and public utilities. That process is ongoing.”

The credit bureau’s creation is designed to provide banks and other formal lenders with a more complete and accurate history of a borrower’s credit history - whether they are current with their loan obligations; if they are meeting them in full and on time; and how much debt they are currently carrying as well as their ability to service existing and future borrowings.

The centralised database provided by the bureau will mean that Bahamians will no longer be able to bounce from one lending institution to another, obtaining credit at each. The improve information should also help lenders better assess and price borrower risk, so that those with good credit histories end up with lower interest (debt servicing) costs. The Bahamian lending market, in theory, should become more transparent and efficient with improved access for good borrowers.

Meanwhile, Central Bank data showed that total private sector arrears - loans

that are between 30-90 days past due, as well as those past 90 days and nonperforming - declined by $38.9m or 5 percent during the 2022 first quarter. Nonperforming loans, which accounted for the bulk of the reduction, fell by 4.3 percent during the first three months of 2022.

“Disaggregated by loan category, consumer arrears reduced by $27m (10 percent) corresponding with a fall-off in both long and short-term delinquencies by $17.9m (8.9 percent) and by $9.1m (13.3 percent) respectively,” the Central Bank said.

“Similarly, residential mortgage arrears decreased by $17.1m (3.9 percent) as the short-term segment declined by $14.1m (8.8 percent) and the nonperforming balance by $3.1m (1.1 percent). Conversely, commercial arrears grew by $5.2m (7.3 percent) as the short-term component rose by $6.7m (28.2 percent), overshadowing the $1.5m (3.1 percent) reduction in non-accrual loans.

“Over the three-month period, commercial banks’ total provisions for loan losses contracted by $17.7m (3.5 percent). However, the ratio of total provisions

to arrears rose by 1.1 percentage points, and the ratio of total provisions to non-performing loans by 0.8 percentage points. For the review quarter, banks wrote-off approximately $21.5m in overdue loans and recovered an estimated $12.8m.”

Non-performing loans totalled $505.5m at endMarch 2022, having declined by $29m that month - a development which more than offset the $7m rise during the year’s first two months. “Concentrated on shorter-term delinquencies, banks’ credit quality indicators softened during

THE WEATHER REPORT

5-Day Forecast

TODAY

ORLANDO

High: 89° F/32° C Low: 71° F/22° C

TAMPA

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

A t‑storm in spots in the morning

A thunderstorm in spots late

An a.m. shower or two; partly sunny

Mostly sunny and nice

Pleasant with partial sunshine

A shower; showers at night

High: 83°

Low: 73°

High: 82° Low: 74°

High: 83° Low: 73°

High: 85° Low: 74°

High: 84° Low: 73°

AccuWeather RealFeel

AccuWeather RealFeel

AccuWeather RealFeel

AccuWeather RealFeel

AccuWeather RealFeel

AccuWeather RealFeel

95° F

79° F

95°-80° F

95°-77° F

95°-75° F

94°-75° F

The exclusive AccuWeather RealFeel Temperature® is an index that combines the effects of temperature, wind, humidity, sunshine intensity, cloudiness, precipitation, pressure and elevation on the human body—everything that affects how warm or cold a person feels. Temperatures reflect the high and the low for the day.

almanac

E

W

ABACO

S

N

High: 79° F/26° C Low: 74° F/23° C

6‑12 knots

S

High: 86° F/30° C Low: 71° F/22° C

6‑12 knots

FT. LAUDERDALE

FREEPORT

High: 85° F/29° C Low: 74° F/23° C

E S

E

W

WEST PALM BEACH

W

uV inDex toDay

THURSDAY

N

N

| Go to AccuWeather.com

TONIGHT

High: 89° F/32° C Low: 74° F/23° C

High: 82° F/28° C Low: 72° F/22° C

MIAMI

High: 87° F/31° C Low: 74° F/23° C

4‑8 knots

Statistics are for Nassau through 2 p.m. yesterday Temperature High ................................................... 84° F/29° C Low .................................................... 73° F/23° C Normal high ....................................... 83° F/28° C Normal low ........................................ 70° F/21° C Last year’s high ................................. 87° F/31° C Last year’s low ................................... 74° F/23° C Precipitation As of 2 p.m. yesterday ................................. 0.00” Year to date ................................................. 8.28” Normal year to date ..................................... 6.34”

ELEUTHERA

NASSAU

High: 83° F/28° C Low: 73° F/23° C

Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2022

High: 82° F/28° C Low: 74° F/23° C

N

KEY WEST

High: 85° F/29° C Low: 78° F/26° C

High: 81° F/27° C Low: 74° F/23° C

N

S

E

W

6‑12 knots

S

7‑14 knots

ANDROS

Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.

The higher the AccuWeather UV IndexTM number, the greater the need for eye and skin protection.

tiDes For nassau High

Ht.(ft.)

Low

Ht.(ft.)

2.1 2.7

5:08 a.m.

4:53 p.m.

0.1 0.1

11:36 a.m. ‑‑‑‑‑

2.0 ‑‑‑‑‑

5:50 a.m.

5:34 p.m.

0.3 0.3

Friday

12:01 a.m.

12:22 p.m.

2.6 1.9

6:36 a.m.

6:19 p.m.

0.5 0.5

Saturday

12:48 a.m.

1:13 p.m.

2.5 1.9

7:25 a.m.

7:11 p.m.

0.6 0.6

Sunday

1:39 a.m.

2:10 p.m.

2.4 1.9

8:18 a.m.

8:09 p.m.

0.6 0.7

Monday

2:34 a.m.

3:09 p.m.

2.4 2.0

9:10 a.m.

9:12 p.m.

0.6 0.7

Tuesday

3:29 a.m.

4:05 p.m.

2.4 2.2

10:00 a.m. 0.5 10:13 p.m. 0.6

Today

10:54 a.m.

11:18 p.m.

Thursday

sun anD moon Sunrise Sunset

6:32 a.m. Moonrise 7:42 p.m. Moonset

9:06 a.m.

11:22 p.m.

First

Full

Last

New

May 8

May 16

May 22

May 30

CAT ISLAND

E

W

March as total private sector arrears rose by $15.6m (2.1 percent) to $740.9m, with the accompanying ratio higher by 34 basis points at 13.6 percent,” the Central Bank said.

“By age, short-term arrears (31-90 days) grew by $44.5m (23.3 percent) to $235.3m with the associated ratio increasing by 83 basis points to 4.3 percent.

In contrast, non-performing loans reduced by $29m (5.4 percent) to $505.5m, resulting in the attendant ratio narrowing by 50 basis points to 9.3 percent - with decreases in non-performing loan rates for consumer loans by 95 basis points to 9.1 percent; mortgages by 21 basis points to 10.9 percent; and commercial loans by 30 basis points to 5.2 percent.”

SAN SALVADOR

GREAT EXUMA

High: 81° F/27° C Low: 75° F/24° C

High: 82° F/28° C Low: 76° F/24° C

N

High: 81° F/27° C Low: 75° F/24° C

E

W S

LONG ISLAND

tracking map

High: 83° F/28° C Low: 76° F/24° C

6‑12 knots

MAYAGUANA High: 83° F/28° C Low: 77° F/25° C

Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures

CROOKED ISLAND / ACKLINS

are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.

RAGGED ISLAND High: 83° F/28° C Low: 77° F/25° C

H H

High: 83° F/28° C Low: 76° F/24° C

GREAT INAGUA High: 86° F/30° C Low: 78° F/26° C

N

E

W

E

W

N

S

S

8‑16 knots

8‑16 knots

marine Forecast ABACO ANDROS CAT ISLAND CROOKED ISLAND ELEUTHERA FREEPORT GREAT EXUMA GREAT INAGUA LONG ISLAND MAYAGUANA NASSAU RAGGED ISLAND SAN SALVADOR

Today: Thursday: Today: Thursday: Today: Thursday: Today: Thursday: Today: Thursday: Today: Thursday: Today: Thursday: Today: Thursday: Today: Thursday: Today: Thursday: Today: Thursday: Today: Thursday: Today: Thursday:

WINDS SE at 6‑12 Knots ESE at 4‑8 Knots E at 6‑12 Knots E at 4‑8 Knots E at 6‑12 Knots ESE at 4‑8 Knots E at 8‑16 Knots E at 8‑16 Knots ESE at 6‑12 Knots E at 4‑8 Knots ESE at 6‑12 Knots SSE at 4‑8 Knots E at 7‑14 Knots E at 4‑8 Knots E at 8‑16 Knots E at 7‑14 Knots ENE at 8‑16 Knots E at 7‑14 Knots E at 8‑16 Knots E at 7‑14 Knots ESE at 6‑12 Knots E at 4‑8 Knots E at 8‑16 Knots E at 7‑14 Knots SE at 6‑12 Knots ESE at 4‑8 Knots

WAVES 3‑5 Feet 2‑4 Feet 0‑1 Feet 0‑1 Feet 2‑4 Feet 2‑4 Feet 3‑6 Feet 3‑5 Feet 2‑4 Feet 2‑4 Feet 1‑2 Feet 0‑1 Feet 0‑1 Feet 0‑1 Feet 2‑4 Feet 2‑4 Feet 2‑4 Feet 2‑4 Feet 3‑6 Feet 3‑6 Feet 1‑2 Feet 0‑1 Feet 2‑4 Feet 2‑4 Feet 1‑3 Feet 0‑1 Feet

VISIBILITY 6 Miles 5 Miles 5 Miles 10 Miles 5 Miles 9 Miles 8 Miles 5 Miles 6 Miles 8 Miles 7 Miles 8 Miles 5 Miles 4 Miles 8 Miles 7 Miles 6 Miles 8 Miles 7 Miles 4 Miles 7 Miles 9 Miles 10 Miles 8 Miles 6 Miles 9 Miles

WATER TEMPS. 77° F 78° F 80° F 81° F 80° F 81° F 81° F 81° F 79° F 80° F 79° F 80° F 80° F 81° F 81° F 82° F 81° F 81° F 80° F 80° F 79° F 80° F 81° F 81° F 79° F 80° F

business@tribunemedia.net

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 2022

$6.25

$6.33

$6.25

‘We buried hatchet’ over retail closure

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net SUPER Value’s principal has revealed he and his family “bit the bullet” in closing their loss-making Harbour Bay housewares retailer, adding: “We were fighting a losing battle so we buried the hatchet.”

Rupert Roberts, explaining the rationale for Bed, Bath and Home’s recent shuttering, told Tribune Business this week that “we didn’t see the future” for the format after COVID19 lockdowns and associated restrictions devastated the Bahamian economy in 2020 and for much of 2021.

Besides the pandemic’s fallout, he cited numerous other factors that drove the closure such as high rent, slow inventory turnover, increased competition with AID (Automotive Industrial Distributors) recently opening a rival store in the Harbour Bay Shopping Centre, and the distraction it caused by taking management

• Super Value chief ‘bit the bullet’ on Bed, Bath and Home • Says losses meant they were ‘fighting a losing battle’ • High costs, low volumes and new competition all factors focus and attention away from the core Super Value/Quality Supermarkets food business.

Noting that his supermarkets “carry over 50 percent” of the products previously offered at Bed, Bath and Home, Mr Roberts voiced optimism that “we’re going to pick up most of the sales” that the Harbour Bay store generated via its core retail format.

“It was sort of out of our line of business,” he explained of the housewares retailer. “We could do better putting our resources elsewhere. It was never successful; high inventory, slow turnover. Over 50

Covert FamGuard recording ‘inadmissible’ on baby death

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net AN EX-FAMILY Guardian executive, who is alleging that the insurer’s actions helped cause her unborn baby’s death, has lost the battle to have a covert recording of her meeting with the firm’s president admitted as evidence.

Justice Loren Klein, in an April 25, 2022, verdict, ruled that Alana Major’s “clandestine” taping of her meeting with Glen Ritchie did not fall under the Interception of Communications Act “exceptions” that permit the details of private conversations - obtained via the use of a”listening device” - to be published or communicated publicly.

While finding that this did not make the recording “inadmissible” by itself, the Supreme Court judge added: “In the exercise of my discretion, I would exclude the material on grounds of unfairness and the possible prejudicial effect.” He noted that numerous legal cases had warned of the “inherent danger and unfairness” that can occur from relying on evidence where one side is unaware they are being surveilled or taped.

“Not only are undisclosed recordings susceptible to manipulation by the recording party, but the court cannot be assured that what is adduced represents accurately the full conversation, or just the portion or snippets prejudicial to the other party,” Justice Klein wrote in justifying his decision.

Referring to the recording of Mrs Major’s July 31, 2019, meeting with Mr Ritchie specifically, he added that the tape - which was 21 minutes long - “abruptly trails-off in mid-sentence”. Justice Klein concluded: “To permit reliance on the recording would be tantamount to the court condoning covert recordings, and the disclosure of private conversations at the manipulation of a party to the conversation, thereby giving its imprimatur to such conduct.

“Although the Interception of Communications Act reflects the ‘one-party consent’ approach to recording a private conversation, it attempts to strike a balance by imposing strict controls on when such recordings may be disclosed or relied on as evidence.

“The misuse of these provisions can create great unfairness and prejudice to the unknowing party, and may even raise constitutional issues going to possible violations of privacy. It is not a practice to which the court should grant its indulgence.”

SEE PAGE 16

percent of the items we carry anyway, so we will take them into our inventory from the sale. It was also high rent....

“AID had also come into the shopping centre; that was more competition. It was the same type of merchandise that AID and Kelly’s Home Centre carry anyway. There was no point in paying additional rent and having 14 stores, so we amalgamated it into our 13th store. It wasn’t worth it.

“It wasn’t up to supermarkettype volumes. We were fighting a losing battle, so we buried the hatchet.... We didn’t see the future when the economy

RUPERT ROBERTS got so bad in the middle of the virus, so we decided to bite the bullet,” Mr Roberts told Tribune Business.

“We didn’t have the control that we have in the supermarkets. The accounting control, the strict inventory count every four weeks. That wasn’t the way we are in the food industry.

It was too loose, and there were losses from lack of volume or challenges with having lots of

SEE PAGE 17

‘Entrenched reduction?’: Bad loans down $22m

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net THE CENTRAL Bank is “holding off” in determining whether COVID-related loan delinquencies have peaked despite a $22.4m reduction in non-performing credit during the 2022 first quarter, its governor revealed yesterday.

John Rolle, in written replies to Tribune Business questions, said that while too early to determine if the three months to end-March represent “an entrenched trend of reduction” it did signal that the worst of the pandemic’s fall-out for the banking sector and its borrowers may have passed although non-performing loans still total over half-a-billion dollars.

“As the system moved through the first quarter, there was a $22m reduction in non-performing loans,” the governor told this newspaper. “Although it is too soon to conclude that this is an entrenched

JOHN ROLLE trend of reduction, it does underscore important moderation and stabilisation in the environment since the height of the pandemic.

“We are holding-off on concluding whether there has been a peak until after the summer months. As it now stands, the nonperforming loan rate was 9.3 percent in March 2022 compared to 9.6 percent at the end of 2021, but it is still higher than in March 2021 when the rate was 8.7 percent.”

Meanwhile, although The Bahamas’ first-ever credit bureau is now

$6.33

LYNDEN PINDLING INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT`

New NAD fees hailed as ‘lot less onerous’ • Private aviation levy switch to plane weight from passengers • Bahamas warned that ‘setting bar too high’ can be deterrent • Industry ‘rocking and rolling’ in 2022 with numbers ‘way up’

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

operational, Mr Rolle said its reports on existing and potential borrowers - and their creditworthiness - will not be complete until the process of acquiring data from sectors such as the credit unions and public utilities is complete.

No timeline for this was provided, with one of the Central Bank’s commercial bank licensees also yet to start supplying customers’ data to the credit bureau.

“The credit bureau is now in operation. All but one of the commercial banks have started submitting data. The last bank will begin to transmit information this month. This submission is expected to match the same historical back series length as was submitted by the other institutions,” the Central Bank governor affirmed.

“Some banks have also began to query the bureau for reports, which they are using to supplement their internal information systems. However, the completeness of the credit

THE PRIVATE aviation industry yesterday hailed the Nassau Development Company’s (NAD) alterations to the new fees imposed on it as “a lot less onerous” compared to what was originally proposed.

Rick Gardner, director of CST Flight Services, which provides flight co-ordination and trip support services to the private aviation industry throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, told Tribune Business he “doesn’t see a major issue” with the Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA) operator levying weight-based fees on every international private aircraft landing.

The new levy, which took effect on Sunday, May 1, marks a major departure from NAD’s original plan of imposing a $28 per head charge on all international general aviation passengers arriving at LPIA. The latter fee, which was designed to raise $30m to finance airside infrastructure improvements, including paving surfaces and lighting, generated fears from Mr Gardner and others that it would drive away a market that has long been “laying golden eggs” for The Bahamas.

However, Jan Knowles, NAD’s vice-president of marketing and communications, confirmed to this newspaper that LPIA’s operator has changed the basis for calculating the fee from a per passenger charge to a weight-based aircraft landing levy in response to industry concerns.

“NAD’s initial proposal was to have a passenger-based fee but, after extensive and constructive collaboration with aviation stakeholders, we determined to put forward a weight-based fee. We were very appreciative of the feedback from aviation stakeholders who made the effort to fully participate in the process, and worked

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NIB losing ‘tens of millions’ over delinquent employers

By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net A CABINET minister yesterday warned that the National Insurance Board (NIB) plans to intensify its pursuit of delinquent employers and self-employed persons who owe “tens of millions” in unpaid social security contributions.

Myles Laroda, minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office with responsibility for NIB, said prior to the weekly Cabinet meeting that multiple businesses are still being brought before the courts for failing to make payments on their employees’ behalf.

While unable to say how many businesses are delinquent, or are being

MYLES LARODA brought before the courts, he urged employers to “become current with their employee and employer contributions because the National Insurance Board will be doing all in its power to collect funds that are so needed at this time”.

Mr Laroda said the nonpayment of contributions often came to light when employees complained these were being deducted from their salaries but not paid to NIB by the employer. The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed contribution delinquencies when employees of culpable employees sought to submit applications for unemployment benefit and other forms of social assistance.

“I can say that from I’ve become the minister responsible, I see on a monthly basis in the report those companies that are put before the court for contributions,” Mr Laroda added. “It’s all relative, but it’s consistent and it’s concerning to the point that we have to be going through it. If you’re seeing different names every

month, and I think in the dozens, it leads you to believe there are a lot of funds out there to be collected.”

The amount of contribution income that NIB is losing out on is in the “tens of millions”, Mr Laroda estimated. Delinquent and/or late contribution payments have been a regular feature at NIB for decades, but resolving the situation has now become much more urgent after actuaries confirmed that the social security system’s $1.6bn reserve fund will be exhausted by 2028 - just six years away.

Addressing this situation, Mr Laroda said: “I would say that in the past NIB has been aware of the of the dire state of the fund, in particular the pension

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