FREEPORT| Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis claimed last night that the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) is building a defense to assert that it cannot pay any liabilities to the government.
PM Davis made the claim during at the town hall meeting in Freeport, Grand Bahama last night over the recent arbitration decision between the GBPA and the government.
“There is a defense being built by the Port Authority saying that, ‘We can’t pay,’” Davis said at the Belinda M. Wilson Centre.
“Well I just want to say that when I hear that and those with the Port Authority say it does not have the money to meet the significant financial claims, remember what I told you about the deliberate transfer away of productive assets.
“It is quite possible that a court asked to enforce a payment obligation against the Port Authority would not be blind to that history of divestiture…”
The town hall, “Clearing the air in Grand Bahama on the arbitration ruling 2026”, featured Davis, and attorneys Greg Moss, a former PLP MP, Ernie Wallace, and Terence Gape.
The Office of the Prime Minister said Davis accepted an invitation to attend the town hall, a point that was reiterated to great fanfare during the meeting.
An independent arbitration tribunal dismissed the Davis administration’s claim for a $357 million reimbursement from the GBPA, but found that the government has a legal right to payments after annual reviews under the Hawksbill Creek Agreement (HCA) as amended in 1994.
The tribunal also rejected seven of the eight counterclaims the GBPA filed, including its claims that it has the sole right to administer licensing, immigration, customs, land purchases and other approvals. The Port Authority’s claim that it is the sole regulator of utilities in the Port Area was also rejected.
The matter went to arbitration after the government presented an account to the GBPA in March 2024, pursuant to clause 1(5)(d) of the HCA, claiming that the Port was liable to pay $357.144 million within 30 days, and the GBPA denied that it had any liability to the government in respect of that or any other sum under clause 1(5)(d) or at all.
Davis said last night that he tried to negotiate with the GBPA before taking any legal action.
“I said, one thing before I leave this office that I want to do is change the status quo here some way or the other, either by my buying them out, and I did offer to buy them out,” he said.
