Responding to a Nassau Guardian report that found the Bahamas Public Parks and Beaches Authority spent more than $141 million in less than five years in office, Latrae Rahming, director of communications in the Office of the Prime Minister, said on Sunday the authority has been “subsidizing small and medium-sized businesses”.
Rahming said this was the explanation provided by the Free National Movement (FNM) when the same authority overspent under its watch, and the Davis administration has simply continued that practice.
“The FNM’s response when they were asked why there were significant cost overruns with Beaches and Parks, they said that they were investing in small and medium-sized businesses, and the position of the government today is that we have continued that practice, ensuring that we stimulate the economy and show that those vendors get it,” he said at a Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) campaign update press conference.
This explanation was in spite of the fact that when the PLP government came to office, Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis labeled the authority under the Minnis administration a “slush fund”, citing significant overspending.
According to budget documents, the authority was budgeted $15,200,000 for the 2021/2022 fiscal year, but spent $24,697,497.
For the 2022/2023 fiscal year, $27,000,000 was budgeted, and the authority spent $27,499,087.
For the 2023/2024 fiscal year, $24,000,000 was initially budgeted, and the authority spent $33,236,200.
In 2024/2025, $24,000,000 was budgeted, and the authority had spent $31,044,898 by March 2025.
There is still no public information on the authority’s spending for Q4 of the 2024/2025 fiscal year.
In the first half of the 2025/2026 fiscal year (July 1, 2025 — December 31, 2025), however, according to the latest mid-year budget figures, the authority had already spent $25,178,694.
The government budgeted $29 million for the entire 2025/2026 fiscal year, meaning that for the second half of the fiscal year, there was less than $4 million to spend.
According to the pre-election report, which was released recently, there was also a $10.9 million loan from the government to the authority in fiscal year 2024/2025.
Under the FNM, the authority spent, by comparison, $84.3 million over four years in office.
In 2017/2018, $7 million was budgeted, and the authority spent $15,634,000. In 2018/2019, $13,850,000 was budgeted, and that amount was spent.
In 2019/2020, the authority was budgeted $19,100,000 and spent $25,900,000. In 2020/2021, however, it spent $28,904,232 — nearly double the $15,200,000 that had been budgeted.
It still totalled to nearly $56 million less than what has been spent under the Davis administration, which was initially highly critical of the authority’s previous overspending.
“The authority was effectively a slush fund, with no attempt made to ensure that the services being paid for by Bahamian taxpayers were provided,” Davis said in the House of Assembly in 2022, just months after his party formed the government.
Bahamas Public Parks and Beaches Authority Executive Chairman McKell Bonaby, speaking at the time on reports that there was a drastic uptick in parks and beaches contracts awarded before the 2021 election, said it appeared to be “electioneering”.
“It looks like it,” he said.
“It walks like it. It sounds like it. And we can see the impact of it, where it was not a real financial decision that was being made. It appears to be a political decision.”
Bonaby has not yet responded to reporters’ questions on the authority’s spending under his watch.
Rahming was nonchalant on Sunday, brushing off critics with a notably different narrative than just three years ago, as he maintained that overspending by the authority is “nothing new”.
“I don’t think that there’s a single Bahamian who would disagree with any government providing and subsidising small and medium-sized contractors,” he said.
Bonaby noted previously that audits of the authority were ongoing. He also promised a “fulsome conversation regarding where parks and beaches is at” and “a full account of everything which would have happened at parks and beaches”.
No audit reports have ever been made available, and no full account has been provided to the public.
Rahming, however, said Sunday that audits were conducted.
“The difference in the leadership between this government and the previous administration is that the current executive chair of Bahamas Beaches and Parks has undergone audits, and I think he’s probably the first chairman to do audits into the authority, and I think that’s something that the government is proud of,” he said.
Travel
Rahming also addressed the Davis administration’s travel spending of $74 million in four years.
He said the travel and related spending were necessary to “ensure that the image of The Bahamas was restored on the global stage”.
“All of that is what it costs to run an archipelago,” Rahming said.
“That’s what it costs to have multiple investment forums around the world.”
He added, “We are satisfied five years later, with record investments in our country, with new relationships, more diplomatic relationships, new investment partners like African EXIM Bank, which has invested in Grand Bahama, which has really recapitalized the Bahamas Development Bank.”
Rahming also emphasized that the travel spending reflected that of the entire government, and noted that more domestic travel was required because of all the capital works projects the Davis administration has undertaken throughout the country.
“We are proud to say that because of the increase in infrastructure development across our Family Islands, building multiple airports and multiple road construction, the multiple ports, we’re seeing a significant increase in our domestic travel, because that really reflects a government at work,” Rahming said.
