Former Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Perry Christie visited the island of Grand Bahama recently where he spoke with the Rotary Club.

Mr. Christie addressed the body on the revival of the Grand Bahama economy and his administrations efforts towards that end.  He said, “you are sitting in a very special island which requires special attention form any government.  You have a system here that a consulting group hired by the committee of Marcus Bethel and Maurice Moore, the Oxford Group, indicated that there’s no parallel in the United States or elsewhere of this kind of model.  And that every consideration has to be given to whether or not this is an effective model.  You have to participate.”

The former Prime Minister said that he had an accounting of the Grand Bahama Port Authority carried out while seeking reimbursement provisions.  “I had done an accounting not an audit, the PLP Prime Minister Brave Davis has done an audit he said.  What we were doing, we’re trying to determine what should happen on this island to make it fly.  We all knew that the infrastructure would put in place for 500,000 people.  We all knew that the economy was being challenged and limping.  We knew that there had to be an infusion of new capital.”

Mr. Christie also explained the accomplishments of the Hawksbill Creek Review Committee.  He said, “the committee met with all sorts of people, all sorts of meetings, came up with a wonderful report, recommendations, discussions were starting to take place with Sarah St. George and the others.  I was taking the approach that whatever we did we had to do it together.”

Mr. Christie said his efforts were in an attempt to transcend politics and the division of politics.