The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

It is good to know that government’s plans to upgrade Potter’s Cay and help it live up to its massive potential as a tourist mecca are “already in the public domain” (according to the Ministry of Agriculture’s latest statement).

What is not clear, however, is how being “in the public domain” is any kind of substitute for actual action of any kind. We are told that the Ministry last met with stakeholders on the matter ten months ago. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of guests at Atlantis and the Bahamian public have been passing over an unsightly and dangerous nest of vagrants under the bridge to the region’s premier resort destination. Last week, it was the site of the country’s latest murder.

Under the PLP (remember the guys who were only motivated by ‘self-enrichment’ and – aside from saving Baha Mar, doubling scholarships, establishing the University of The Bahamas and building BAMSI – did nothing for the country?) Potter’s Cay was already under active redevelopment. Under the FNM, it has stopped - like the Andre Rodgers stadium, the Post Office project (relocated to the boondocks with no consultation), NHI and the cruise port in East Grand Bahama.

Like his colleagues at Health and Education, who have become most adept at describing problems (especially where it involves telling the public how no-good and undeserving we are) the Minister of Agriculture has shown a stunning inertia when it comes to actually doing something at Potter’s Cay, even though the plans were handed to him and his colleagues by their predecessors.

Potter’s Cay is a most obvious potential mecca of tourism, recreational activity and entrepreneurship. Any of our neighbours would yearn for such an untapped opportunity, of which there is none comparable in the region. Its transformation would instantly boost visitor spending. To have failed to act on it because of budgetary constraints is a case of absurd priorities.

ANDREW ALLEN

Nassau,

May 9, 2018.