Bahamas News
Treasure Cay residents updated on Small Home Repair Programme
#TREASURE CAY – February 2, 2020 —- Treasure Cay residents were updated Friday night on the Government’s soon-to-be launched Small Home Repair Programme, through which homeowners could receive up to $10,000 in vouchers toward home repair.
The town hall meeting, which took place at Full Gospel Assembly, was organized by the Bahamas Disaster Reconstruction Authority and the area Local Government.
The Small Home Repair Programme launches on February 10.
There will be four categories for which vouchers will be granted. Residents whose homes were assessed with minimal damage will be eligible for $2,500 in vouchers; those with medium damage will be eligible for $5,000 in vouchers; those with major damage will be eligible for $7,500 in vouchers; and those whose homes were destroyed will be eligible for $10,000 in vouchers.
Voucher recipients will be able to use them for home improvement materials, labour or a combination of both.
There will be online registration for the programme. There will also be in-person, sign-up locations for those unable to register online.
The Grand Bahama in-person registration site will be at the Small Home Repair Programme office at the Office of the Prime Minister. The Abaco site will be at the administration complex in Marsh Harbour.
To qualify a person needs to be Bahamian; to own the property in question; there must be proof of residence at August 31, 2019; the property would need to have been uninsured; and the property has to be in Grand Bahama or Abaco.
Under the programme, tradesmen used for repairs would need to be approved. Materials purchased with vouchers would have to be from approved vendors in The Bahamas.
“It is very important for the economy to continue to grow,” said Katherine Forbes-Smith, Managing Director of the Authority.
“And so we want to put a program in place where the money stays within the community. We want to support the small businesses. It’s important. Small businesses are employing people. And so it’s very important for us to keep the money as best we can in the country.”
The Authority will disburse 50 percent of the voucher first. An inspector will then check and ensure the voucher was spent on the home. Once that is verified the remaining 50 percent would be disbursed.
The Authority has also partnered with various NGOs in Dorian-impacted communities. Through the partnerships the Government pays for home repair labour and the NGOs provide supplies and various types of logistical and technical assistance.
Treasure Cay residents expressed concerns regarding the ongoing electricity outage in the area. Hurricane Dorian destroyed much of the Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) infrastructure in central Abaco.
Restoration work to the network is underway. BPL has said electricity should be restored to all of Abaco by the end of March.
Residents expressed further concerns with the water outage in the area. Mrs. Forbes-Smith pledged to get an update from the Water and Sewerage Corporation on their restoration work.
The Authority also met with the business community in Marsh Harbour on Friday, January 31.
Representatives from the Department of Inland Revenue and the Small Business Development Centre were present to inform the business community of the tax concessions and loans and grants available to them.
Hurricane Dorian hit Abaco and Grand Bahama in September. With maximum sustained winds of 185 miles per hour, Dorian was the strongest storm to hit The Bahamas.
The Authority has hosted a series of town hall meetings in Abaco and Grand Bahama to update residents on the restoration effort and to hear their concerns. These meeting will continue in communities affected by Hurricane Dorian.
PRESS RELEASE: BAHAMAS DISASTER RECONSTRUCTION AUTHORITY, FEB 2, 2020
Dana Malcolm
Staff Writer
#TheBahamas, March 17, 2023 – The FBI is investigating a woman’s ‘suspicious’ death on a Carnival Cruise ship in February. The unnamed woman and her husband boarded the Carnival Sunshine on February 27th, for a trip to the Bahamas, but she was dead before they arrived in the port in The Bahamas. 
The FBI said Carnival’s team had administered life saving measures when the woman was reported unresponsive, but they were unsuccessful. The body and the woman’s husband were released to the Bahamian authorities when the cruise arrived in the country.
In a statement shared with US media houses, Carnival Cruises claimed the death has been a natural one. The Nassau Guardian said a source told them the police findings had concurred with that assessment saying it was a “normal sudden death of a tourist who wasn’t feeling well.”
The FBI was waiting for the cruise and when it got back to South Carolina on March 4th, they immediately boarded and began to investigate the room based on ‘evidence of a crime.’ The FBI also searched the couple’s car.
No updates have been shared to contradict the currently established cause of death.
Dana Malcolm
Staff Writer
#TheBahamas, March 17, 2023 – “If you don’t like it, go to another beach!” Is what Aaron John, an Education Officer from The Bahamas National Trust jokingly tells our news team about sargassum blooms; his quip, motivated by the necessity of nature when pit against the notion that there is a real threat when the stinky seaweed makes its annual appearance.
John can admit, he says, that Sargassum isn’t very pretty but life isn’t all about aesthetics and in this instance that ugly patch serves a purpose.
“We love our sandy beaches, but in order to keep them we need Sargassum. When storms come, they wash away all the sand off the beach but sargassum acts as a mulch to protect the sand from water erosion. It doesn’t look good, it
doesn’t feel good but we need it.”
He said it also provides a habitat for small crustaceans, crabs, and insects that are all necessary to our ecosystem and islanders have found use for the weed.
“Historically, (in The Bahamas) we have been using sargassum as fertilizer, especially in the family Islands as far back as I know,” he said. “Birds don’t go on the beach unless there is Sargassum and what do they do? they feed – it’s beautiful.”
He encouraged residents to just leave it be if they came across it.
Sargassum isn’t harmful to humans, except for people with respiratory issues who may find the rotten egg smell triggers asthma. Despite this, it’s not advisable to walk through the weeds which may hide sharp rocks and bottles or vulnerable animals.
Experts say Sargassum blooms began to increase in size around 2011 and have continued to get bigger and bigger since. This year‘s bloom is around 5000 miles long and 300 miles wide and visible from space.
“I know it’s not a general outlook, but I would like to change the perspective on sargassum,” John said, pointing out The Bahamas National Trust is actively working to decrease alarm over the less worrisome events like sargassum as it raises the profile on the environmentally devastating.
Dana Malcolm
Staff Writer
#TurksandCaicos, March 17, 2023 – The Turks and Caicos’ Bahamas Diaspora Office is moving closer and closer to opening day, following the Cabinet’s approval for the signing of a lease agreement.
The lease will be signed with FINCEN ltd in the Bahamas. Several weeks ago, Arlington Musgrove, Minister of Immigration confirmed to our news team that the location had been found and was being finalized; now a lease is
approved at the Cabinet level.
The interest in the TCI from TC Bahamians was evident in the diaspora meetings held in early February. The two meetings held in Nassau and Grand Bahama were completely full and over-subscribed by hundreds.
It’s interest which the Government hopes will translate to real life population growth, bolstering the local population before the native population ‘goes extinct’.
The Opposition PDM is on the record with what it feels is a far more viable solution to a dwindling native population; seek out the country’s own citizens and bring them back home.
Cabinet did not state when the office will open.
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