By NEIL HARTNELL
TRIBUNE Business Editor
nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
FREEPORT “feels like the black sheep of the Bahamian economy”, a prominent businesswoman is asserting, as she urged businesses to seize the opportunity offered by the Government’s reform drive to end this “sense of exclusion”.
Glennett Fowler, founder and group president of Freeport-based Heroic Group, which includes Heroic Concrete & Concrete Products, in a letter sent to Tribune Business (see article on Page 2B) said the city and its private sector often feel they are on “the outside” looking as jobs and growth “seem to reach every other rock and cay”.
Writing after the Davis administration unveiled its reform parameters and public consultation on island-wide changes to Grand Bahama’s governance, she said Freeport’s business community is suffering from “fatigue” and “exhaustion” caused by the daily struggle to keep their businesses afloat amid uncertainty and lack of direction about what the future holds.
Explaining that open doors should not be interpreted as a sign of successful businesses making sustained profits, Ms Fowler praised the Grand Bahama Port Authority’s (GBPA) “efficient” service delivery but argued that Freeport’s business community needs more - a critical mass, or large-enough customer base, to sustain it with too few benefiting from recent major investment projects.
The Heroic chief, lamenting that Freeport’s struggles are not well understood by counterparts in the rest of The Bahamas, called on all Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) licensees and the wider island’s businesses to use the six-month consultation, set to start on November 1, as an opportunity to advance their common interests and help chart a future direction to benefit all.
And, warning that neither Grand Bahama nor its private sector can afford to stand still, Ms Fowler argued that all businesses must build the legacy they will pass to future generations and seek an enabling commerce climate that offers conditions in which they deliver “sustainable returns” and broader prosperity for all.
Suggesting that the consultation offers the chance to bring Freeport’s realities into focus, and set an alternative future vision, the Heroic president wrote: “Too many Grand Bahamians still feel on the outside of opportunity, even as progress seems to reach every other rock and cay. Freeport continues to feel like the black sheep of the Bahamian economy. That sense of exclusion must change.
“Across our business community, there is fatigue. What sometimes looks like lethargy is often the exhaustion of people who have worked, invested and waited, yet still struggle to see a clear path forward.
“Keeping the doors open does not always mean a business is doing well. Sometimes it means the owner has made another personal sacrifice. Breaking even can feel out of reach when wages, utilities, insurance, equipment and debt must be paid regardless of what comes through the door,” Ms Fowler added.
“Many continue because employees depend on them, customers trust them and they remain loyal to Grand Bahama. But loyalty alone cannot sustain an economy.” She added that Freeport businesses needed “to close that gap” between on-the-ground reality in the city and the “misconceptions” harboured elsewhere in The Bahamas.
With Freeport’s population standing at 46,740 residents in 2022, less than one-fifth of the 250,000-strong population that its infrastructure was built to sustain, Ms Fowler signalled that it lacks the critical mass necessary to provide a strong, sustainable consumer spending base that will allow businesses to endure.
“From my experience, the central challenge is economics. I have found the GBPA efficient in delivering services. Yet efficient services alone cannot generate the customers, spending and commercial activity businesses need to survive,” she wrote.
“An approval matters, but a business also needs a market….. Recent investments offer reasons for hope. Yet, from where I stand, their benefits remain concentrated among a relatively small group and are insufficiently felt by the average Bahamian.
“Announced investment must translate into wider economic activity: Purchases from local suppliers, contracts for capable enterprises, sustainable employment and money circulating through our communities.”
Ms Fowler said the Grand Bahama business community’s participation in the six-month Grand Bahama reform consultation, due to close at end-April 2027, must both “help shape the future and keep building in the present”
She added: “The Government will ultimately determine its policy direction and bring forward any proposed legislation. Our responsibility is to contribute a clear, united and practical account of what this island needs.
“We should use the consultation period to identify what works, explain what needs attention and propose measures that increase economic participation while protecting confidence. The process should produce a clear path for resolving outstanding issues and minimise further hardship during any transition. Focus rather than fear needs to be the order of the day.
“Let us stop complaining in silos. Manufacturers, retailers, contractors, service providers, professionals, and small business owners should rally together around shared priorities. We may have different views about the framework, but we share an interest in a prosperous, productive island.”
The Government, in unveiling a reform package that has three broad strands in seeking to seize back control of Freeport’s governance and regulatory authority from the GBPA, made clear it has decided change is not an option and that is - at present - the only certainty.
It has determined that Freeport’s 99-year founding treaty, the Hawksbill Creek Agreement, which has 28 years left before its 2054 expiry, has “outlived its utility” with different elements now facing reform, repeal or replacement. The Davis administration plans to replace it with an island-wide governance regime via the Grand Bahama Development Act.
A new body, the Grand Bahama Development Council, will be created to monitor and co-ordinate the new Act’s implementation, but the Government’s ‘Green Paper’ on the reforms signals that, at present, it falls far short of being a like-for-like GBPA replacement or, indeed, a municipal authority with revenue raising powers.
The reforms amount to the Government taking over control of Freeport’s governance, management and administration - which many of the city’s residents have told Tribune Business they do not want, given what has happened in Nassau, West End and East End - while raising concerns that the Council may merely create more bureaucracy and red tape.
Senator Latrae Rahming, the Prime Minister’s communications director, responding directly to fears that the proposed reform package will be “catastrophic” for Freeport, GBPA licensees and residents, said on Friday: “The only thing catastrophic for Grand Bahama would be for it to stay the same.”
He added that Grand Bahama lost 9 percent of its population, or just over 4,500 residents, between 2010 and 2022, as these numbers fell from 51,368 to 46,740, while some 19.5 percent or 4,306 of its 22,127 dwelling units were found to be vacant in the latter year.
“This is what the status quo has delivered,” Mr Rahming said. “For this government, the status quo is off the table. None of this should come as a surprise.” He added that the Government “wants the whole of The Bahamas in this conversation because what happens in our second city affects the whole nation”.
Dillon Knowles, the ex-Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce president, immediately hit back at what he perceived to be Mr Rahming’s and the Government’s response to his concerns, asserting that they had done the same when they “attempted to disparage my credibility when I opined on the catastrophe that would befall Grand Bahama Power, and taxpayers, if the Government acquired it…
“History has proven me right. The taxpayers will now hold a $332m debt, and the viability and reliability of the company is at stake,” he added. Mr Knowles then detailed a number of questions for the Davis administration to answer, including identifying what the new proposed governance regime will deliver that the Hawksbill Creek Agreement cannot.
He also asked the Government to elaborate on the value of the city, Freeport, that the GBPA and its present and former owners have developed from the pine barren that existed in 1955, and figures on the revenue, expenditure and investment it has made in The Bahamas’ second city so as to put the proposals in their proper context.