The Tribune

AN outspoken QC has described anchor project developments as the “bane” of the Bahamas, claiming that due to the secrecy of Heads of Agreements the Family Islands are now “strewn with the rotting remains of dozens of failed resort ventures”.

Speaking at a workshop for the College of the Bahamas’ Environmental Law Clinic, Fred Smith said that thanks to these shrouded deals the Bahamas is “littered with the decaying carcasses of white elephants”. He added: “A white elephant is a possession that is useless or troublesome, especially one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of; or its cost is out of proportion to its usefulness.”

Mr Smith - CEO of Save The Bays, the social and environmental movement - told the students that many of these ill-fated projects continue to pollute and destroy irreplaceable ecosystems while disrupting local cultures and traditional patterns of life.

He said that rather than take action to protect the public from this trend, the political establishment has wholeheartedly embraced it, with the first Christie administration even launching the “Anchor Project” theory of development, seeking to attract a mega-resort to every populated island in the archipelago. Mr Smith explained this political enthusiasm by pointing out that even though these huge projects often fail, there is still a great deal to be gained by certain stakeholders.

“Anchor projects are the bane of the Bahamas,” he said. “But the foreign developers and many of the Bahamian politicians involved make lots of money upfront.”

Mr Smith said the rule of law is enshrined in the Bahamas Constitution, but this reality has been largely ignored by the political establishment in its effort to take advantage of lucrative or politically useful situations.

“And hence we have no environmental law for the protection of the marine or terrestrial environment; for local rights for the protection of the Family Islands; for the protection of the social, cultural and economic environment of the Bahamas; for the indigenous and historically distinct communities that have developed throughout the Family of Islands,” he said.

“Everything has given way to money and corruption, expediency, politicians in Nassau grasping desperately to hold on to power and thus opportunities for secret profit.”

The stated aim of a Heads of Agreement is to cut through red tape so a development can proceed as swiftly as possible. In practice, Mr Smith said, this leads to the subversion of numerous laws put in place to protect the Bahamas and its environment.

“We cut through the Local Government Act, the Customs Management Act, the Immigration Act, the Planning and Subdivisions Act, the Protection of the Physical Landscape Act and so forth,” he said. “Red tape is nothing other than a euphemism for the laws duly enacted by the democratically elected members of parliament that populate our lower House and our Senate,” he said.

Mr Smith asked the students to imagine someone being able to sign a Heads of Agreement with President Barack Obama to circumvent federal, state, county and city laws “and build an anchor project in Florida on the scale of Baha Mar; or an exclusive cruise port facility in Florida Keys like Carnival is planning for East Grand Bahama; or to explore for oil in the Great Lakes; or to secretly receive federal land for $1 a beachfront acre as occurred at Baker’s Bay in Guana Cay.”