Bahamas News
CHTA Calls For Continued Pandemic Diligence And Open Borders
Caribbean leading the world in tourism recovery
December 15, 2021 – The president of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA), Nicola Madden-Greig, in a letter to the head of the CARICOM (Caribbean Community) and copied to the region’s Heads of Government and health and tourism leaders, called for the continued adherence to health safety protocols and stepped up vaccinations, but cautioned that rushing to close Caribbean borders and impose difficult and costly travel barriers could delay the recovery and have severe consequences for the region’s economies.
Madden-Greig, writing the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda Gaston Browne, who currently serves as Chairman of CARICOM, applauded the region’s governments, health and tourism authorities, and the tourism industry for the Caribbean’s strong tourism rebound, while maintaining the health safety of employees and travelers.
She cited the low positivity rate of tested travelers, and the success of health safety protocols aimed at protecting employees, visitors and residents. She added that this should reassure travelers and also Caribbean residents that risk levels from tourists are extremely low, and the tourism industry continues to protect lives and livelihoods.
Madden-Greig asserted that putting onerous measures in place would retard the sustained recovery of travel and tourism and regional economies, which she said had restored an estimated 70 percent of tourism-related employment and “supported the replenishment of sorely needed tax revenue to governments.”
The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has cited Caribbean tourism as recovering faster from the pandemic
than any region with tourism’s contribution to GDP expected to rise more than 47 percent this year. In contrast, the global economy is set to receive a 30.7 percent year-on-year increase from Travel & Tourism in 2021.
Despite the region’s success in minimizing the impact of COVID-19, the award-winning Jamaican hotelier warned that the proliferation of the Delta variant, the emergence of the Omicron variant, the reemergence of travel bans, and more stringent travel regulations threatened to reverse the tourism recovery.
Moreover, CHTA concurs with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) opposition to blanket travel bans which it says would not prevent the international spread, while placing a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods. In addition, such bans could harm global health efforts during a pandemic “by disincentivizing countries to report and share epidemiological and sequencing data.”
In the letter, CHTA recalled that prior to the emergence of the Omicron variant and additional travel bans and restrictions, the outlook for the peak travel period this winter and spring, and for the return of intra-Caribbean business and leisure travel by Caribbean residents and the diaspora, was strong.
Referring to the uncertainty surrounding the Omicron variant, the tenacity of the Delta variant, the level of vaccine hesitancy by many residents, and a complacency in adherence to health safety protocols in many parts of the world, CHTA cautioned that “the region may now find itself struggling to recover in 2022.”
Madden-Greig contended travelers have recognized the region’s efficacy in containing the pandemic as evidenced by the Caribbean’s leading role globally in tourism’s recovery and in containing COVID-19: “Our ability to continue to manage our way through the pandemic is the fastest path to recovery, getting displaced employees back to work, ensuring businesses survive, and replenishing badly needed government revenues as we collectively work towards the sustained growth for our economies.”
PM: Project delivers on promise and invests in youth, sports and national development
GRAND BAHAMA, The Bahamas — Calling it the fulfillment of a major commitment to the island, Prime Minister Philip Davis led the official groundbreaking for the Grand Bahama Aquatic Centre, a facility the government says will transform sports development and create new opportunities for young athletes.
Speaking at the Grand Bahama Sports Complex on February 12, the Prime Minister said the project represents more than bricks and mortar
— it is an investment in people, national pride and long-term economic activity. The planned complex will feature a modern 50-metre competition pool, designed to meet international standards for training and regional and global swim meets. Davis said the facility will give Bahamian swimmers a home capable of producing world-class performance while also providing a space for community recreation, learn-to-swim programmes and water safety training.
He noted that Grand Bahama has long produced outstanding athletes despite limited infrastructure and said the new centre is intended to correct that imbalance, positioning the island as a hub for aquatic sports and sports tourism.
The Prime Minister also linked the development to the broader national recovery and revitalisation of Grand Bahama, describing the project as part of a strategy to expand opportunities for young people, create jobs during construction and stimulate activity for small businesses once operational.
The Aquatic Centre, he said, stands as proof that promises made to Grand Bahama are being delivered.
The project is expected to support athlete development, attract competitions, and provide a safe, modern environment for residents to access swimming and water-based programmes for generations to come.
Angle by Deandrea Hamilton. Built with ChatGPT (AI). Magnetic Media — CAPTURING LIFE.
The Bahamas, February 15, 2026 – For the better part of three years, Bahamians have been told that major Afreximbank financing would help transform access to capital, rebuild infrastructure and unlock economic growth across the islands. The headline figures are large. The signing ceremonies are high profile. The language is ambitious. What remains far harder to see is the measurable impact in the daily lives of the people those announcements are meant to serve.
The Government’s push to secure up to $100 million from Afreximbank for roughly 200 miles of Family Island roads dates back to 2025. In
its February 11 disclosure, the bank outlined a receivables-discounting facility — a structure that allows a contractor to be paid early once work is completed, certified and invoiced, with the Government settling the bill later. It is not cash placed into the economy upfront. It does not, by itself, build a single mile of road. Every dollar depends on work first being delivered and approved.
The wider framework has been described as support for “climate-resilient and trade-enhancing infrastructure,” a phrase that, in practical terms, should mean projects that lower the cost of doing business, move people and goods faster, and keep the economy functioning. But for communities, that promise becomes real only when the projects are named, the standards are defined and a clear timeline is given for when work will begin — and when it will be finished.
Bahamians have seen this moment before.
In 2023, a $30 million Afreximbank facility for the Bahamas Development Bank was hailed as a breakthrough that would expand access to financing for local enterprise. It worked in one immediate and measurable way: it encouraged businesses to apply. Established, revenue-generating Bahamian companies responded to the call, prepared plans, and entered a process they believed had been capitalised to support growth. The unanswered question is how much of that capital has reached the private sector in a form that allowed those businesses to expand, hire and generate new economic activity.
Because development is not measured in the size of announcements.
It is measured in loans disbursed, projects completed and businesses expanded.
The pattern is becoming difficult to ignore. In June 2024, when Afreximbank held its inaugural Caribbean Annual Meetings in Nassau,
Grand Bahama was presented as the future home of an Afro-Caribbean marketplace said to carry tens of millions of dollars in investment. What was confirmed at that stage was a $1.86 million project-preparation facility — funding for studies and planning to make the development bankable, not construction financing. The larger build-out remains dependent on additional approvals, land acquisition and further capital.
This distinction — between financing announced and financing that produces visible, measurable outcomes — is now at the centre of the national conversation.
Because while the numbers grow larger on paper, entrepreneurs still describe access to capital as out of reach, and communities across the Family Islands are still waiting to see where the work will start.
And in an economy where stalled growth translates into lost opportunity, rising frustration and real social consequences, the gap between promise and delivery is no longer a communications issue.
It is an inability to convert announcements into outcomes.
Angle by Deandrea Hamilton. Built with ChatGPT (AI). Magnetic Media — CAPTURING LIFE.
A hardline strategy that reduced murders, gunfire, and collateral deaths
The Bahamas, February 8, 2026 – What happens when police stop routinely granting bail to high-risk suspects and aggressively execute outstanding warrants? In The Bahamas, the answer in 2025 was fewer murders, fewer gunshots, and safer communities.
The Royal Bahamas Police Force arrested 4,337 individuals on outstanding warrants last year, ensuring suspects were brought directly before the courts instead of being released back onto the streets. At the same time, police significantly curtailed the use of police bail for high-risk and repeat offenders, particularly those already entangled in violent disputes.
Police Commissioner Shanta Knowles said the shift was informed by hard lessons from previous years. Intelligence reviews showed that
many homicide victims were not random targets, but men already wanted by law enforcement and — critically — by other criminals. When released on bail, those individuals often became targets themselves, triggering retaliatory shootings that spilled into neighbourhoods, roadways and public spaces.
By keeping high-risk suspects in custody pending court appearances, police say they disrupted that cycle — removing both potential offenders and potential victims from the streets.
The impact was stark. Murders declined by 31 percent in 2025, falling from 120 in 2024 to 83, the largest percentage decrease in homicides since national tracking began in 1963 and the lowest murder count in nearly two decades.
Police leaders say the strategy also reduced the collateral damage that had increasingly alarmed communities. Innocent residents had been caught in “sprays of gunfire” as targeted attacks unfolded in residential areas, at traffic stops, and in public settings.
Gun-violence indicators reflected the change. Gunshot reports fell by 35 percent, while incidents detected by ShotSpotter technology declined by 29 percent, confirming that fewer shots were being fired across the country.
“Gunshots ringing out and cutting through our peaceful paradise were down remarkably,” Commissioner Knowles said, attributing the improvement to decisive enforcement, tighter bail practices, and sustained pressure on offenders.
Police also intensified enforcement against breach of bail conditions, charging and detaining more suspects than in any previous reporting period. Officers say the approach removed the opportunity for repeat offending while matters were before the courts.
Police leadership said the results go beyond statistics. By limiting bail for high-risk suspects and executing warrants at scale, the strategy saved lives, protected bystanders, and restored confidence in public safety.
In 2025, fewer people were hunted, fewer bullets were fired, and fewer families were left grieving — a shift police say was no accident, but the result of deliberate, hardline choices.
Angle by Deandrea Hamilton. Built with ChatGPT (AI). Magnetic Media — CAPTURING LIFE.
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