LYFORD CAY SCREAMS

The 800 people who live in Lyford Cay don’t vote and they do not have citizenship of The Bahamas.  However, their influence is outsized to their numbers.  They put up the GDP per capita of the country making it difficult for The Bahamas  to get loans on concessionary terms from development agencies.  They skew the political results by always supporting the FNM.  They were shocked then that the FNM passed an amendment to the real property tax act which would have led to a multiple fold increase in their taxes.  They had their association President Henry Cabot Lodge III ( as in Boston: the Cabots speak only to the Lodges and the Lodges speak only to God ) write a letter to the Government telling them change the law or else they would all pack up and leave.  The Government buckled and announced it was changing the law.  Reel backwards to the fact that the Bahamian people who make up the  larger number in the country went on the streets to protest the raise in taxes by the FNM from 7.5 per cent to 12 per cent.  Thousands took to the streets to demonstrate.   The FNM refused to listen.  They called the crowd a rent a  crowd paid for by the number  boys.  They  went straight ahead.  It is obvious that the 800 people in Lyford Cay are more powerful than the  91,000 who voted for the FNM.