Bahamas News
BAHAMAS: FTRA to meet country’s deficiencies regarding FATF recommendations
#Bahamas, May 17, 2018 – Nassau – The Bahamas’ Financial Transactions Reporting Act, 2018 (FTRA), will meet all of the deficiencies that were identified in respect to the country’s compliance with the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Senator the Hon. Carl W. Bethel, QC, said Wednesday.
Addressing a stakeholder meeting with industry regulators and members of the Bahamas Bar Association, Attorney-General Bethel said the Act 
will, in a broad sense, be the “heart of the system of compliance and due diligence that will henceforth be the standard of conduct to be expected of all participants in financial services.”
The stakeholder meeting was hosted by the Office of the Attorney-General, in conjunction with the Bahamas Bar Association, as part of the 2018 Legislative Series. Attorney-General Bethel provided an overview of the FTRA during Session I.
The Bahamas was found to be deficient in 22 of the 40 recommendations included in the FATF’s Mutual Evaluation for late 2015. Attorney-General Bethel said the present Administration received notice in late May, beginning of June, 2017, and has been working assiduously to correct the situation ever since.
“You only need to be deficient in 21 of them to be where we are today,” Attorney-General Bethel said. “One of the things that was required was to bring into effect an updated Financial Transaction Reporting Act. Drafts were found in the Ministry’s files, but had not been progressed. They weren’t aligned with the FATF’s recommendations.”
Attorney-General Bethel said the FATF “break their recommendations down” into almost microscopic suggestions that are called methodologies.
“And so you have the recommendation. To comply with the recommendation, you have to show that you have the methodology in place and are implementing it. How do you get the methodology in place? You have to craft laws almost with microscopic attention to these methodologies. That is the process we have been at and so today we now have an FTRA. We will have a fully compliant and acceptable FTRA that will meet all of the deficiencies,” Attorney-General Bethel added.
The Financial Transaction Reporting Act was one of several areas covered by Attorney-General Bethel during Wednesday’s session. The Attorney-General also addressed matters ranging from compliance to lawyer/client privilege.
Attorney-General Bethel said the session with the stakeholder group, was a necessary part of the stakeholder consultative process on the Financial Transaction Reporting Act, as lawyers/attorneys and accountants are now being looked upon as financial institutions globally. They were previously designated as Non-Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs).
“Lawyers, accountants and certain other professionals, were never treated as financial institutions before, they merely had duties of customer due diligence, making Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) possibly, but they were never given the duties of being a financial institution. That has all changed. They are now in the category of financial institutions,” Attorney-General Bethel said.
“Now attorneys, apart from having the usual due diligence, they must verify it. That’s the kind of ‘enhanced’ due diligence that is now required because the standard now is obtaining and verifying. The second aspect of that is of course, that as financial institutions, you are now expected to comply and to be regulated.”
The Attorney-General also addressed the matter of lawyer/client privilege.
“We all know that privilege does not extend to the issue of, or in any way facilitate, the commission of a crime by a client. So there are limits to privilege. It was suggested to myself and my staff in a meeting with the Bar Council by some persons, that we look at the situation in Canada whereas it is well known that the Supreme Court ruled that lawyer/client privilege was akin to an absolute right and that any intromission into this sacred territory violated certain articles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“And so Canada is habitually, in their mutual evaluations, given negative ratings on this whole issue of the legal profession and privilege because it is inescapable that they are unable to comply with the recommendations that they, as a member of the FATF, are party to imposing on the rest of the world.
“But the reality is that Canada is a country with enormous natural resources, 40-50 million people, and a standing army, navy and air force. They do not need the world as much as we do. We have an entirely open economy. We are an integrated part of the world, and we are very small. We do not have the luxury that a Canada can enjoy.”
Attorney-General Bethel said it is expected that lawyer/client privilege will be kept within due bounds.
“Any time counsel is aware of anything untoward, it is mandated by law that STRs be generated.”
The Attorney-General expressed his “full confidence in this august and learned legal profession” of The Bahamas.
“You have helped to pilot this Ship of State through many such storms. This is only the latest. This is The Bahamas. We know how to pilot the ship. Let us remember that it is not survival of the fittest, it is survival of the smartest and I always say about this Blessed country, that we may not have natural resources – iron or steel, etcetera; we may not have rare earth minerals, we may not have large quantities of agricultural lands to speak of (and) so we have had to learn, and we have learned over this past four hundred-odd years, to not only survive, but to succeed because we use what God gave us between our ears – our brains. We have what it takes not only to survive, but to succeed.
“My colleagues of the Bar, I have every confidence that you will continue in that noble tradition of not just surviving, but succeeding,” Attorney-General Bethel added.
Photo Captions:
Header: Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Senator the Hon. Carl W. Bethel, QC, chatting with officials from the Office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Legal Affairs during a break in Wednesday’s Session. Attorney-General Bethel was accompanied by (first right) Mr. Marco Rolle, Permanent Secretary, Office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Legal Affairs.
Insert: Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Senator the Hon. Carl W. Bethel, QC, provided regulators and members of The Bahamas Bar Association with an overview of the Financial Transactions Reporting Act, 2018 (FTRA) Wednesday, May 16 as part of the Office of the Attorney-General/Bahamas Bar Association’s 2018 Legislative Series held at the British Colonial Hilton. Also pictured (from left) are: Khrystle Rutherford- Ferguson, Treasurer, Bahamas Bar Association; Kahlil Parker, President, Bahamas Bar Association; Attorney-General Bethel; Juanita Lewis-Johnson, Vice-President, Bahamas Bar Association and Marco Rolle, Permanent Secretary, Office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Legal Affairs.
(BIS Photo/Patrick Hanna)
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.
