EDITOR, The Tribune.
Bahamas Petroleum Company continues to roll out its “friendly Bahamian face”, otherwise known as James Smith, to parrot the dodgy slogans by CEO Simon Potter and the rest of the outside interests looking to make a quick buck by striking oil in The Bahamas.
Smith, like Potter, claims that finding oil will have a huge impact on the Bahamas. He says it could improve our standard of living and even prevent starvation!
This is a load of nonsense. By BPC’s own estimate, even if they are fantastically successful, it could mean $5 billion in revenue for The Bahamas over the next 20 years. That’s about $250m a year, or roughly what it costs us to run the Department of Education from January to December.
That’s right. Just one government department. Admittedly a big department, but still it represents only a tiny slice of our annual budget, which runs around $3 billion every year.
Added to which, we are now $9 billion in debt and counting.
In other words, absolute best case scenario: BPC will give us the equivalent of one thirty-sixth of our national debt per year. Far less than the amount by which the debt grows each year.
In fact, I’m not sure it would even cover the interest payments.
And we all know that there is very little chance of this best case scenario happening.
Much more likely, BPC will find just enough oil to dribble a few million into the treasury from time to time.
Remember, they are paying us royalties if and only if they outperform their projections each year. And guess who gets to set the projections.
What are we being forced to risk in return? A tourism industry worth $1.3 billion a year which is responsible for 50 percent of the jobs in this country. In other words, everything we have.
Our livelihood and our children’s future.
But while even a huge oil find won’t improve life for most Bahamians by any noticeable measure, one group’s circumstances will change dramatically for the better.
Simon Potter and crew, including James Smith who is a director and shareholder in BPC, will probably all become fantastically rich by putting our economy and society in grave danger.
In my opinion that is what this deal is really all about: making money for them and leaving us, the Bahamian people, saddled with all the risk.
Make no mistake, this was a case of ‘our interests versus their profit’ from the beginning.
We should remember that they have a major vested interest whenever they speak to us of the benefits for Bahamians.
Because remember, the well they are proposing to drill now is not for extraction.
In order to generate any revenue for the Bahamas at all, BPC will have to be allowed to follow up by drilling multiple wells, perhaps dozens, at multiple locations within five different license areas.
And if anything goes wrong at any one of those sites, it could be the end of our tourism product overnight.
Then, we would become a fully-fledged petrostate, a client country at the mercy of BPC, with no choice but to rely on the company for its little payments here and there in order to survive.
This is the sad reality for many impoverished countries with oil in Africa and Central America. Perhaps they had no choice, but we do.
We have the highest per capita income in the Caribbean precisely because of our ability to commercialise the natural beauty and abundance of this country and make it highly lucrative.
Destroy that beauty and you destroy our advantage. And then we will be just another failed state to be exploited by parasitical multinational companies while our quality of living tanks and environment continues to be poisoned.
RICARDO JOHNSON
Nassau,
December 9, 2020.
Comments
moncurcool 3 years, 4 months ago
For all these people who complaining about oil drilling in the Bahamas I would want to know first and foremost how many of them do not drive cars, or use electricity from any power company in this country. Let's see all the declarations to see if they are really against the use of oil doing harm to the environment.
Porcupine 3 years, 4 months ago
This is a child's argument moncurcool, and you know it. This is about to getting our society on the right track. Do some reading other than the Tribune. Spend some time researching the issue, and then come back and give your report. If you're honest, you will see the world's thinkers realize that oil is killing the life force of our planet. Mr. Johnson's points here are perfectly valid and true. You don't have a cogent argument. You're using child's thinking here, moncurcool. Most people don't have a choice but to drive or ride the bus to get to work or to anyplace else. Few people have a choice but to use electricity. Stop with the stupidity, moncurcopol. It truly does hurt the country. There is a limit to how much an individual can do to help change the system. And, is this the only system in this country that needs changing? For how many generations did decent people know that slavery was wrong? Not just the slaves, but the slave owners, as well. Would you have been one of the ones who said, "Well, just stop being a slave, and there won't be any slavery." Same difference. First, we must speak out. And, speak out loudly when we see what is wrong. The fossil fuel industry, the oil companies, if you bother to do any reading at all, have a long history of subverting the will of the people, the best interests of the "people", democracy, their health, and the environment, solely for the sake of personal profits. What is it about this sordid history that you do not understand or are ignorant of? It is right there in the literature, moncurcool. And yet, you would use your voice to demean those who truly do have an interest in making The Bahamas a "better place" that you would cast your vote with the oil drillers. How truly sad what the lack of education has brought to us, moncurcool. There is overwhelming evidence that the burning of fossil fuels is bad for life on this planet, The evidence is arriving by leaps and bounds everyday. Only a child would ignore this at all of our peril. .
themessenger 3 years, 4 months ago
Even today's children are aware of the urgency. @moncurcool, never heard of Greta Thunberg?
moncurcool 3 years, 4 months ago
And a child could see the hypocrites who don't want to drill for oil in thier own yard but want to use the oil being drilled form in other people yard. Boy that's smart.
moncurcool 3 years, 4 months ago
So all you who feel it is stupidity, I trust you walk or ride bicycles and don't use power from BEC. Until you willing to put your money where you mouth is and walk the walk you are just as hypocritical. Don't complain about not wanting to have oil drilling and yet you still using oil from somewhere else. Even a child could tell you that is stupid and hyprocrisy.
Voltaire 3 years, 4 months ago
Moncurcool. There may be societies out there that do very well off oil drilling, for whom $250k a year would be a huge deal, who do not rely on their natural beauty to run their economy. No one said ban all oil drilling, cars etc. , just ban it here. This is the wrong place for it and our society has nothing to gain from it.
moncurcool 3 years, 4 months ago
So it is wrong here and right elsewhere? Really? What sort of logic is that?
Martin Luther King said injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
You can't want it to be band here, and yet still use it. That does not compute
ScubaSteve 3 years, 4 months ago
There have been several articles written on this topic over the past few months from both sides of the story. By far, this was the most logical and best article written to date. It is concise, gets right to the point, and is easy to understand. Bottom line up front... the vast majority of the $ will flow to BPC and it's shareholders and very little will flow back to the Bahamas government and it's citizens. Yet, the Bahamas will brunt all of the long-term risk and very little of the potential rewards. As most things in life, it comes down to money and false advertising/false hope.
JokeyJack 3 years, 4 months ago
Good points. I've been writing for over a year for someone to say what is the amount of money involved. Only now, after the ship has sailed (literally) is this information coming out. The only cry we've heard is "save the environment." Well, that's a good cry - but what were we balancing that against. Also I've asked where would the money go. Again, only recently did we learn that the money would go into the invisible hole of our national treasury and not to Bahamians directly.
I pleaded that we hear both sides of the story. How much money? Who would get it? Yet, all we heard was "save the beaches" and stuff like that. We needed to hear both sides.
Now that we have, I agree that there is not enough money here to make it worthwhile. 250M would be about 1000 for every eligible Bahamian per year. A thousand bucks a year is not a lot of money.
Of course, if we balance that out against the $200 every five years that is rumored to be paid for people's votes - that works out to only $40 per year and people are willing to sell out democracy for that. So maybe more analysis is needed as to what our values truly are.
ColumbusPillow 3 years, 4 months ago
When commercial quantities of hydrocarbons are hopefully found in this country, one may consider what happened in Trinidad.. Petrotrin is a Trinidad government owned company that has up to 10,000 employees engaged in the exploration, development oh hydrocarbons and the manufacturing and marketing of petroleum products It was the successor to Shell Trinidad and Texaco. Don't we need this sort of thing for the future of our country at a time that tourism is in deep trouble.
tribanon 3 years, 4 months ago
You must foolishly think none of us are capable of typing into a search engine: Trinidad + oil + industry + problems
lol
Bahama7 3 years, 4 months ago
Hello !! Is there anyone there...
Billions of dollars in oil revenue ?! No thank you.
I’m hitting my head against a wall as you read this you morons.
Porcupine 3 years, 4 months ago
Please keep hitting your head against the wall. Maybe you'll get some decency to sink in. Lowly money grubber.
4thebenefit 3 years, 4 months ago
lowly money grubber!.....all ive seen is people complain about how the royalties are not enough!! we want more money because its a foriegn company....this is a pathetic arguement. worldwide companies sign deals with governments all the time and there are no free give aways to the citizens.
the $250m is a base line on a lower prediction..looking at the structures there is not only oil...but substantial amounts!
i think before a hand is even given...you want the whole arm and shoulder too!
gd luck finding/ attracting another international company to do business with if this is how you treat "foriegn investment"
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