Last week, four groups \uff96 out of eight that paid the initial $10,000 fee \uff96 submitted bids to buy 49 per cent of Bahamas Telecommunications Company. Of those four, three included Bahamian partners. <\/P><\/p>\n
\n
\nIt is understood that the bids ranged from $100 million to over $240 million. And analysts say that, in today’s economic climate, anything along these lines is a good deal. But there is little doubt that had the government moved swiftly to privatise Batelco years ago, they could have raised hundreds of millions more. <\/P><\/p>\n
\nIt is not known whether a minimum reserve price was set. And we don’t even know if the government will actually go through with the sale at all, though some say the treasury is so desperate that we are almost forced to sell to the highest bidder. <\/P><\/p>\n
\nSources say the government’s advisers, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, was paid $100,000 a month, in addition to a performance bonus. So who is watching DMG on behalf of the Bahamian people? In fact, shouldn’t this contract be a part of the public record? <\/P><\/p>\n
\nAnd how does the government intend to use the funds they raise from this sale? We have a right to know. <\/P><\/p>\n
\nOne thing is clear, this is not the end of the privatisation ordeal. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.<\/p>\n
Editorial, The Nassau Guardian<\/B><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How does the government intend to use the funds they raise from this sale? We have a right to know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}