The Tribune

By LARRY SMITH

A FEW years ago, I visited Little Harbour on Abaco – a solar-powered community of some 50 homes encircling a picturesque cove near Cherokee Sound.

This unique settlement was founded by a Canadian art professor named Randolph Johnston, who sailed his family to The Bahamas in 1952 and initially sheltered in a cave shared with bats, owls and crabs.

“It is beautiful beyond description,” Johnston wrote at the time. “In this landlocked haven there is a perfect semi-circle of white beach gently lapped by water so clear you cannot tell where dry sand stops and water begins ... There is no sign of man except the distant roof of the Little Harbour Light.”

Johnston set himself up as a charter skipper and sculptor, becoming a local celebrity and a citizen within a few years. His bronze statue of a Bahamian woman was installed on Prince George Wharf in 1975, while his autobiography, Artist on his Island, was published the following year.

When it was virtually worthless, Johnston acquired land at Little Harbour and over time sold bits and pieces to other vagabonds from varied backgrounds, creating the eclectic community that exists today anchored around Pete’s Pub, a famous watering hole run by the sculptor’s son. Among the homeowners are artists, doctors, lawyers, engineers, airline pilots, and boat bums.

According to Abaco Life magazine, “Little Harbour is still delightfully remote ... Turtles, stingrays and dolphins inhabit the water, and a fringe reef along the east shore at the mouth of the harbour offers excellent snorkelling. Families with kids frolic in the shallow, protected water off the harbour shore, and the pub is filled with patrons.”

But this, apparently, is all set to change. Southworth Development, the Massachusetts-based owner of the nearby Abaco Club at Winding Bay, plans to build a 44-slip marina in the anchorage – in front of a now-derelict private home owned by the club. The house will be converted into a shop and restaurant.

Other developments will include a 6,000sq ft covered parking lot, storage facilities and generators. Boat slips in the marina will be sold to Abaco Club homeowners at more than $100,000 apiece.

According to one Little Harbour resident, “the net result for visiting boaters would be a serious lack of anchoring room, increased boat traffic, pollution, noise, bright lights, etc. The marina would be for Abaco Club members only, and not available to cruising boats”.

Another told The Abaconian newspaper: “They want to turn a private home into a marina, boat store and snack bar. If we had zoning in Little Harbour, there’s no way they could do that. We certainly couldn’t buy a house in Winding Bay and turn it into a marina, so why should they be allowed to come into our community and do that?”

Another commented in the online Abaco Forum: “It’s one thing to upgrade the existing area but to ruin a place like Little Harbour is just awful. I don’t know how any one could think this was a good idea. There are some places that shouldn’t be touched and Little Harbour should be one of those.”

Another said: “The owners at Winding Bay just want to raise the resale value of their property by saying it comes with a dock in Little Harbour. And don’t forget it’s a private marina and a private restaurant – Members Only. Well, Little Harbour is a Non-Members Only kind of place. Let’s keep it that way.”

Another pointed out that the road ahead had been “paved by the likes of the Wilson City power plant, the Bakers Bay resort and Resorts World Bimini. With no Freedom of Information Act, the government will continue to secretly move the ‘improvements’ forward, ignore any requests for information, and turn a blind eye to environmental issues.”

Southworth Development, in conjunction with a consortium of existing homeowners, bought the 453-acre Abaco Club late last year from the Marriott Corporation for an undisclosed sum. Marriott had been in dispute with the homeowners after it acquired the $250m property in 2008 from the original developer – British entrepreneur Peter de Savary.

According to Prime Minister Perry Christie, Southworth will invest “hundreds of millions” in real estate developments that will “significantly boost” Abaco’s economy over the next five to seven years. Like similar developments scattered around the country, the Abaco Club features an 18-hole golf course and scores of upmarket beachfront homesites.

An email request to Philip Weech of the BEST Commission for a copy of the project’s environmental impact assessment went unanswered. The EIA, which Southworth says has been completed, is not on the BEST Commission’s website.

GREEK REFORMS NEEDED HERE

BAHAMIANS celebrated Greek Fest this weekend while the new Greek government was feverishly putting together a list of structural reforms it will pursue. Greece is under heavy pressure from the European Union to reform its government in return for financial aid to keep its economy afloat.

Here’s a partial list of the Greek reforms – they are equally vital for The Bahamas:

1 Create a new culture of tax compliance to ensure that all sections of society, and especially the well-off, contribute fairly to the financing of public policies.

2 Improve tax collection, broaden the definition of tax fraud and fight evasion.

3 Provide a higher degree of financial and budgetary accountability.

4 Enhance the openness and transparency of tax and customs administration.

5 Strengthen the independence of the public revenues agency while guaranteeing full accountability and transparency of its operations.

6 Review and control spending in every area of government.

7 Review non-wage benefits expenditure across the public sector and reform the public sector wage grid.

8 Modernise the pension system by establishing a closer link between pension contributions and income, and by streamlining benefits.

9 Turn the fight against corruption into a national priority.

10 Reduce the number of Ministries (from 16 to 10), and the number of “special advisors” in general government.

11 Establish a transparent, electronic, real time institutional framework for public tenders/procurement.

NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE OR DEATH

HEALTH Minister Dr Perry Gomez says the government has contracted Costa Rican-based consultants to help implement the national health plan (NHI) which will be phased in sometime next year.

Gomez has put Bahamian healthcare spending today at almost 10 per cent of our $8 billion Gross Domestic Product. That represents some $800m in total annual spending – including public and private as well as overseas health spending. The private sector accounts for about half of this money, experts say.

In 2004 Gomez chaired the commission which recommended that The Bahamas adopt a financing system called social health insurance, which pools payments from all residents to pay for universal healthcare. Individuals could still buy private insurance to cover areas ineligible for reimbursement by the public system.

This is the system operating in many countries around the world, including highly-rated models like the French and Singaporean healthcare services. But the bottom line is this: ideological arguments notwithstanding, experts say there is no single type of system “that performs systematically better in delivering cost-effective healthcare.”

According to the 34-nation Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, both market-based and command-and-control systems have their strengths and weaknesses. “It seems to be less the type of system that matters, but rather how it is managed.”

And that is the key to the success of NHI in The Bahamas. Proper management is critical to the future health of our economy, as well as that of our citizens.

• What do you think? Send comments to lsmith@tribunemedia.net or visit www.bahamapundit.com.