business@tribunemedia.net
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2020
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‘Talk is cheap’ warning over $1.5bn debt fears
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
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HE government was yesterday warned that “talk is cheap” when it comes to The Bahamas’ mounting fiscal and economic woes, as governance reformers demanded: “Let’s see some action.” Robert Myers, the Organisation for Responsible Governance’s principal, told Tribune Business “we’ve heard it all before” with the government’s Fiscal Strategy Report laying out little that was new in terms of the country’s problems or a strategy for addressing both GDP growth and the
• Governance reformer urges: ‘Let’s see some action’ • Economist’s concerns on higher refinancing rates • Little progress on multi-billion public pension woe
ROBERT MYERS
expanding national debt and fiscal deficit. “They’ve kicked that can down the road as far as they can,” he said of a national debt that is projected to hit the $10.4bn mark by mid2022. “I would say talk is cheap. Let’s see action. We’ve heard it all before. Start making it happen. “I don’t want to hear any more talk. Nobody believes in that any more. The public sector and the administration has to start making it happen. It’s time for them
to act and stop talking. If they’re not going to act then we need to find somebody else who will. That’s then bottom line. The talk is over, over. Act or get out. “They haven’t made the ease and cost of business any lower. They’ve added more bureaucracy, they haven’t increased foreign direct investment (FDI), have not reduced the cost of the public sector and not
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Bahamas is hailed for ‘stroke of genius’
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
THE Bahamas was yesterday hailed for “a stroke of genius” in developing Florida-based pre-clearance facilities for a private aviation market that has “almost doubled” in volume during recent months. 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 that the two locations will represent an industry “game changer that no other country has” when they become operational in early 2021. He explained that the initiative will “open up” Family Islands that presently lack designated ports
• Creates private aviation ‘game changer’ • Industry player: No one else comes close • Preclearance to open as volumes up 100% of entry by enabling private pilots and their clients to clear Customs, Immigration and COVID-19 protocols while still in the US, and also reduce the cost, complexity and time associated with flying to The Bahamas. Mr Gardner, a member of The Bahamas Civil Aviation Council as well as a Bahamas Flying Ambassador, said the initiative will also benefit charter companies and seaplanes bringing clients to The Bahamas as it will help reduce the costs associated with their services. He explained that by facilitating pre-clearance in Florida, these planes will
Tourism rebound to be ‘slower than we want’ By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net A SENIOR tourism executive yesterday warned that The Bahamas’ rebound will be “slower than we want it to be” despite Atlantis moving to expand its re-opening with The Cove’s February 11 return. Fred Lounsberry, the Nassau/Paradise Island Promotion Board’s president, said Baha Mar’s return yesterday - along with Atlantis expanding its re-opening through The Cove - was what all industry stakeholders
QC pushes to ‘settle’ Gaming Board dispute By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
A QC representing 24 former Gaming Board staff yesterday said he “doesn’t understand” why it has failed to settle the dispute over their termination as the potential taxpayer liabilities are rising daily. Wayne Munroe, speaking after attorneys for the government regulator withdrew their bid to overturn a previous Supreme Court decision, told Tribune Business he hoped it would move to resolve the matter
have been waiting for over the past nine months. He said: “We need all of our properties open. I know it’s been a slow, slow process, but Baha Mar is a great addition. Sandals will be a great addition when they open in January. It all adds up. It’s all important that we have that critical mass of properties, with a wide variety of properties.” Mr Lounsberry warned, however, that the tourism industry’s rebound will be slower than anticipated. He said: “I think our momentum is going to be slower than we
SEE PAGE 2 rather than go through another appeal. “They’re making the case it wasn’t a redundancy exercise because there was a surplus of labour,” he said. “There was only a surplus of labour accumulating at the Gaming Board because there was automation of their processes, which is a classic case of redundancy. “I don’t understand their argument. Hopefully they may come to settle it. I don’t understand why they don’t settle. Every day the amount to reinstate climbs. This is December, nine months down the road (from Justice Indra Charles ruling on February 17, 2020). If they don’t get reinstated until March next year that’s 12 months more.”
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no longer have to clear at a designated port of entry in The Bahamas on either an inward or outbound journey, thus slashing “three landings into one”. The pre-clearance move, he indicated, was perfectly timed to boost a tourism niche likely to rebound faster from the COVID19 pandemic than others with the volume of private flights to The Bahamas up “almost 100 percent” year-over-year for October and November as high net worth individuals and their families sought to escape soaring infection rates in the US and elsewhere. While December numbers
were “not following the same trend”, which Mr Gardner attributed to the ongoing spike in COVID-19 cases in the US and warnings by health authorities not to travel, he added that the figures were still “way up” on 2019 comparatives. Suggesting that The Bahamas’ pre-clearance move will further boost this performance, he told Tribune Business: “I believe that the pre-clearance is a stroke of genius by The Bahamas’ government and will positively help private aviation to The Bahamas.
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Cyber security experts: BTC network vulnerable By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net BAHAMAS-based cyber security experts yesterday argued that the Bahamas Telecommunications Company’s (BTC) outdated network equipment left it vulnerable to penetration by malign actors. Scott MacKenzie, Cloud Carib’s managing director, told Tribune Business that it was easy to access BTC’s systems because the carrier, and possibly its immediate parent, Cable and Wireless Communications (CWC), were using legacy networks and equipment that are at least 20 years out-of-date. Speaking following allegations that Chinese state-owned entities had used BTC’s network to spy on US citizens, Mr MacKenzie said: “The issue relating to the SS7 network that China allegedly hacked into is that SS7 is a very, very old protocol that was primarily used in PSTN (Public switched telephone network). “So moving away from legacy network operator protocols would be important.” He said major telecommunications companies such as AT&T had begun to do this back in 1999-2000, and added: “Those large telecommunications companies started to move away from SS7, more towards SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) based protocols for their telecommunications operator.” Describing SS7 as an “ancient protocol” for telecommunications providers, Mr McKenzie said it was vulnerable to hacking and other attacks from “bad actors” unless BTC and CWC were constantly upgrading their networks. BTC, which is 49 percent owned by the government, earlier this week told Tribune Business in a statement it was “carefully reviewing”
claims - first published in the Guardian newspaper in the UK - that state-owned Chinese communications providers had used its systems to conduct surveillance on Americans roaming on their mobile phones in The Bahamas. Other CWC subsidiaries in the Caribbean, especially Barbados, were also identified as major sources of these alleged breaches which - if true - have huge national security and economic implications for The Bahamas, as well as its ability to safeguard the personal data and civil liberties of both its own citizens and US visitors that make up 85 percent of its tourism market. The assertion that major security vulnerabilities exist in the Bahamian telecommunications system was based on a report by Gary Miller, a US former mobile network security executive, who was said by the UK Guardian to have “spent years analysing mobile threat intelligence reports, and observations of signalling traffic between foreign and US mobile operators”. Miller and his business, Exigent Media, a cyber threat research firm, have published two reports that detail how BTC’s mobile phone system was purportedly used in a “co-ordinated attack” on US cellular phone numbers by Chinese stateowned mobile providers. The first report, Far from home - active foreign surveillance of US mobile users, argued that international roaming - the practice whereby Bahamians use a foreign carrier’s network for communications services overseas, just as Americans use BTC and Aliv’s systems when they are in this nation - has enabled “covert foreign surveillance” of mobile users. It explained that hostile
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