As the PLP slate of candidates in Grand Bahama becomes clear, onlookers have suggested that the debacle over the leadership of the Grand Bahama Port Authority was politically motivated.<\/p>\n
The governing party, it was claimed yesterday, has used criticism of the appointment of Hannes Babak to disguise its lack of performance in the country’s second city.<\/p>\n
Now that former chamber of commerce president Dowdeswell Coakley is being spoken of as the prospective PLP candidate for High Rock, a source said the Grand Bahama business community realises that the criticism was led by two PLP hopefuls – Mr Coakley and Senator Philip Galanis.<\/p>\n
“As chamber commerce president, Mr Coakley has been on a public tier criticising the appointment of Mr Babk as has Senator Galanis. Their motives have now become clear: attempting to overshadowed the government’s failures in Grand Bahama.” the source said.<\/p>\n
However Mr Coakley pointed out that he has not been confirmed as yet as a PLP candidate for High Rock.
\nHe said whatever pronouncements he made as president of the chamber were made as a person holding that position and not as a member of any political party.<\/p>\n
Any statements I made prior to Monday was strictly as chamber president on behalf of the Bahamian business community. Now I am not in the chamber so I will not speak for the chamber, I can not speak for any political party because I have not been ratified or authorised to do so. I am just John Q Pblic.<\/p>\n
“I was once a police officer,” he continued. “What I did then, as a police officer, I did as a police officer. I was a diplomat, what I did then I did as a diplomat. I am a business person, what I do now I do as a business person. When you have different hats you do what you have to do at the time.”<\/p>\n
While he is not a candidate as yet, as a resident of High Rock, Mr Coakley said that he is very interested in the “holistic development” of the area.<\/p>\n
“As a Bahamian I am interested in bettering the constituency. If I am ratified – I don’t know if I am going to be ratified, I don’t know what announcements they are going to make – but as a private citizen and one who comes from a socio-economic and business background, I know what I would wish to see happen as a Bahamian,” Mr Coakley said.<\/p>\n
By RUPERT MISSICK Jr Chief Reporter, The Tribune<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Grand Bahama business community now realises that the criticism of the Port was led by two PLP hopefuls – Mr Coakley and Senator Philip Galanis.<\/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-243734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243734","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=243734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}