By SANCHESKA BROWN
Tribune Staff Reporter
sbrown@tribunemedia.net
LAWYER Wayne Munroe, who represents the owners of five webshops, said yesterday his clients are concerned that even after they pay the government’s “so-called penalty” they will not be granted gaming licences.
Speaking to The Tribune, Mr Munroe said the government is playing “hard ball” with webshop owners, demanding they pay a penalty for operating before the sector is regularised without guaranteeing they will get a licence to operate after July 1.
His comments came after Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson said the government will impose a penalty on webshops’ illegal operations prior to the implementation of a new regulatory framework for the sector.
“Nothing has been guaranteed to anybody,” Mr Munroe said. “The government is playing hard ball. They are saying you pay it, period. That is it. Paying it still does not mean that we will get a licence: everyone has to pay it ,but not everyone will get a licence.
“There is going to be a process similar to licencing in any gaming environment. You pay this back business licence fee because you owe it. It is crazy that people are accusing the government of playing favourites when this has been a hard, painful process. My clients are worried, this uncertainty is not good for business.
“These men are Bahamians, they live here. So if they do not get a licence, they will have to terminate staff and leases and see these people every day, so everything is up in the air right now.”
Mr Munroe said despite the government promising to bring gaming legislation to Parliament next week, his clients have still not been able to see or review the document.
“They say we are getting preferential treatment and that is far from true, we have been giving and giving and not getting. When the FNM was in power this process was not half as vigorous. The government is doing a lot more, crawling all up in the business, having their accountants analyse and scrutinise everything. This process is far more painful,” he said.
“And still despite all of that, we still have not been able to have a meeting with them to discuss what their plans are. We were supposed to be able to give views just as the casinos who met with them did, but we are still waiting.”
Prime Minister Perry Christie recently affirmed the government’s intention to regulate the underground sector and said the industry’s taxes will be retroactive to July 1. The gaming legislation is expected to be presented in the House of Assembly next week.
Comments
Well_mudda_take_sic 11 years, 9 months ago
Nice try Mr. Munroe. We know Wilchcombe has told you and the mobsters/racketeers you represent that it must be made to look like the government is playing hardball with the known illicit gaming operators like Craig Flowers. But truth be told, if our PM (Perry Christie), Minister of National Security (Bernard Nottage), Attorney-General (Allyson Maynard-Gibson) and Police Commssioner (E. Greenslade) were all doing their jobs and abiding by the wishes of the Bahamian people as expressed in the referendum (instigated by the Christie administration and costing the Public Treasury more than one million dollars), all assets of the illegal gaming operators would be immediately seized for the benefit of the Bahamian people and the likes of Flowers would be forever banned from gaming activities or, better still, imprisoned for a reasonable period. Christie, Wilchcombe and Maynard-Gibson would have us believe our country needs to regularize the illicit operations of these webshop mobsters and racketeers when in fact what they should be doing is confiscating the assets of these known criminals and incarcerating them. Listening to Maynard_Gibson suggest that what the government is proposing to do is no different than what has been done in Canada with respect to online gaming is an absolute joke! Canada first cleaned-up all known illegal activities by confiscating the assets of the known criminals and in some instances putting them behind bars before passing legislation to regulate online gaming so that there would be a level playing field for all new duly licensed entrants to that newly regularized industry. Canada did not permit the known mobsters and racketeers to hold onto their wealth accumulated prior to the regularization process and many of the Canadian mobsters involved with illicit gaming operations were incarcerated on tax evasion charges with no statutory limit on how far back the evasion activities occurred. The Canadian Government and Revenue Canada (the tax authorities) reaped a huge windfall by first enforcing the then existing laws against known illicit gambling operators before passing new legislation to regulate gaming activities. To suggest that Canada was willing to forgive and forget the past illegal acts of the mobsters engaged in illicit online gaming and other criminal activities as part of the regularization process of its gaming industry is totally untrue and Gibson-Maynard knows it!
ThisIsOurs 11 years, 9 months ago
Same thing they did after the referendum results gave them an electric shock and threw them into a tailspin. Perry Christie played bad cop and demanded the webshops be closed immediately then Wayne Munroe files his injunction and PGC, AG and Commissioner say, there's nothing we can do, it's before the courts. Way to go. Teamwork.
sheeprunner12 11 years, 9 months ago
Now the fun begins ............... the PLP will never be able to control the webshop cartel because they are dependent on them for political contributions ......... a dangerous affair
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