Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis announced a new public-private program this past Friday geared towards increasing Bahamian ownership of government assets. 

He added that the plan is to curb the amount of complaints surrounding government buildings maintenance issues. 

He said, “I would like to at this time to personally thank Mr. Greg Cleare, who is leading the government in a new and innovative programme where we will establish an independent company where all government buildings will be permanently located and become part of this company; one hundred per cent Bahamian and government owned and Bahamians will be offered an opportunity to invest in this company and own government complexes.”

He added, “ the government will then be in a position to rent facilities of its own, rather than having three or four individuals monopolizing on the economy, or as we would say, the web shops monopolizing on the economy. The Bahamian people will be empowered to own their own complexes and have returns of  5-6 per cent as opposed to 0.5 per cent as  is given in the bank.

“And I would hope that when this initiative is launched, that we would have full and complete cooperation of each and every Bahamian who will own such an organization, such an institution, and we will guarantee 5-6 per cent return,” he said. 

On the sidelines of Friday’s ribbon cutting ceremony at Poinciana House, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Peter Turnquest said that the government is looking at an innovative product that will widen the participation of the average Bahamian.

“We haven’t come up with any concrete plans, but the idea basically is that all of the government’s assets will go into a trust fund or special sovereign fund, where Bahamians would be able to invest in it with a guaranteed return.”, he said.

“The trust fund would be responsible for managing those assets to ensure that their upkeep is up to par, that they take care of the remediation issues that continue to pop up in all of these ministries, and ensure that the environment for our civil service is comfortable, modern, and afforded a good work place.”, he added. 

However, he said that the matter is before Cabinet at the moment, and he expects that this will come into fruition in short order.