There have been some very interesting goings-on in our country recently.\u00a0 Is the church the newly appointed public relations agency for the opposition?\u00a0 If the opposition has learnt nothing else of late it has learnt that whenever a voice is needed to oppose government\u2019s decisions the \u201cnew\u201d church is available.\u00a0 Is this the new norm?\u00a0 Has our quiet church mouse become a gun for hire?\u00a0 Gambling, now oil?\u00a0 Hmm.<\/p>\n
In our social discussions over the past few days, the church mouse\u2019s vociferous vituperations of Bahamas Petroleum Company (BPC) were cause for much critical analysis of its possible motives.<\/p>\n
The National Citizens Committee, Bahamas Christian Council and the Bahamas Christian Council\u2019s Economic Committee \u2013 collectively known as the National Citizens Alliance Coalition (NCAC) \u2013 have pounced to the fore masquerading as the voice of the Bahamian people, the church, God and now its new ally, the FNM.\u00a0 The NCAC has forcibly injected itself as mediator between Bahamas Petroleum Company and the Bahamian people in what could possibly be the greatest oil find in this region.<\/p>\n
This group (NCAC) has decided that it has been ordained to protect the \u201cfinancial\u201d interests of the Bahamian public and guard against the conjectured exploitation at the hands of this \u201cforeign oil imperialist\u201d, who by NCAC\u2019s assessment is a dubious venture capitalist company with no oil exploration experience, but with whom they would personally like to do business.\u00a0 Hmm again.<\/p>\n
Our understanding from Ingraham\u2019s recent statement is that BPC has in the past been represented by Callenders & Co., Higgs & Johnson and Davis & Co. \u2013 three very reputable Bahamian law firms.\u00a0 Based on CEO Simon Potter\u2019s information, their management team has over 30 years of collective experience in oil exploration.\u00a0 What are the blind mice\u2019s credentials in the oil industry that qualify them to act as national negotiators in such complex matters?\u00a0 Yet, they seemingly have a problem with the revenue-sharing portion of the agreement between BPC and the government, which essentially shares profits 50\/50 between the oil company and the government.<\/p>\n
This now raises many more questions in our social pantheon than can possibly be examined sufficiently in this letter; hence, a possible part two.<\/p>\n
We, the large majority of Bahamians not represented by NCAC are asking, no, rather demanding, to be told:<\/p>\n
1. Who asked NCAC to negotiate on our behalf?<\/p>\n
2. On what authority does NCAC act and what are its real motives?<\/p>\n
In order to put things into perspective I must defer to the prime minister\u2019s recent comments on the subject when he said that any discussion on revenue sharing at this point is premature because the first drop of oil has not been extracted yet.\u00a0 He went on to say that the government will examine the revenue sharing protocols between many oil producing countries and the oil companies in order to adopt a system that incorporates international best practices if or when commercially exploitable oil deposits are found.\u00a0 I don\u2019t always agree with the prime minister, but he and I are on the same page with this position.<\/p>\n
Let us look a little closer at this issue while we\u2019re at it because NCAC seems to be implying that the purported agreement between BPC and the government is unjust.\u00a0 Oil exploration in The Bahamas began in the 1940s, however no serious drilling activity has occurred for many, many years.\u00a0 Not a single oil company in the world has shown any interest whatsoever in exploring for oil in The Bahamas since the late 1980s.\u00a0 One wonders why?\u00a0 Was it that marine geophysical technology had not developed sufficiently to warrant the substantial financial investment necessary until recently?\u00a0 Or is it that the oil companies considered the likelihood of success too small, and hence the risk of a big monetary loss too great?\u00a0 We do not know.\u00a0 What we do know is that Bahamas Petroleum Company has over the past seven years invested more than $50 million of its own funds into this latest venture.<\/p>\n
That is a sizeable investment to risk on an as yet uncertain proposition.\u00a0 If large deposits of oil are not discovered, that would be $50 million of BPC\u2019s money down the flush.\u00a0 If large oil deposits are discovered, all future oil exploration and extraction expenditures will also be borne solely by BPC.<\/p>\n
Not one penny comes from the government; yet if success is had The Bahamas would become one of the richest countries in the world on a per capita basis, and every single citizen would benefit directly.\u00a0 Given this viewpoint, it appears to me that a 50\/50 revenue sharing arrangement is rather reasonable indeed.\u00a0 In any event, a sovereign government has the right to craft any deal in the manner that it wishes, so long as the other side agrees.<\/p>\n
That being the case, the only problem for the time being that I have with the church mouse and its friends is this: We even ain\u2019t find no oil yet an dey kickin\u2019 up all a dis fuss.\u00a0 Man da people just explorin\u2019 an\u2019 y\u2019all trying ta share up da proceeds already?\u00a0 My God, da NCAC dun gone hunting with salt and pepper.<\/p>\n
We are now left to wonder, what has so enraged the church mouse, and why?\u00a0 With all of the unattended social ills in our country over the last few years, national issues choking our society and irreverent behavior by pastors and bishops, why now?\u00a0 Why oil?\u00a0 As we continue to dig deeper into this will we find that there is a hidden agenda?<\/p>\n
Phew, a lot of cheese is in the air and we smell a mouse.<\/p>\n
By: Welly Forbes<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In our social discussions over the past few days, the church mouse\u2019s vociferous vituperations of Bahamas Petroleum Company (BPC) were cause for much critical analysis of its possible motives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":[14],"tags":[139,93,581],"class_list":["post-33552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions","tag-church","tag-corruption","tag-oil-drilling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33552","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}