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Last Updated: Dec 29, 2011 - 2:18:31 AM |
 Nassau, Bahamas - On the 1st September, The Nassau Guardian carried a story with an
interview with Derek Winford, the CEO of Bahamas Supermarkets Ltd.,
which does business in The Bahamas as City Markets. The story said that
I attended a meeting with the CEO to discuss my intervention in the
press on behalf of my constituents about the fate of City Markets. The
story said that it was expected that I would issue a statement
subsequent to my meeting and I now do so.
In The Tribune 28th August, the CEO Derek Winford said that City Markets
is in business to stay in business. I welcome that statement. Aside
from Mr. Winford’s response, there were two other responses in the press
to my intervention. Mine was a simple intervention that expressed
concern for my constituents who work at City Markets, noted the issues
in the store about inventory and equipment, and in the face of those
fears of my constituents who are employees of the store, I asked the
Ministry of Labour to intervene both in a formal and informal way to
seek to protect the rights of the workers at the store.
There is a history in this country of companies that are foreign owned
promising that all is well right up until the day they shut the doors
and the owners abscond, leaving the workers swinging their hands.
The Minister of Labour has the authority to intervene to protect the
workers in law, not for the government to save the company but to
protect the workers.
I think the two responses by Rick Lowe of the right wing Nassau
Institute (6th September) and Jerome R. Pinder (1st September) are
perverse and knee jerk. My simple intervention got translated by these
two unbridled market forces men to mean that I was interfering in
business in The Bahamas and advocating that City Markets be saved by the
Government. Wonders never cease from the usual suspects. There are
times when such an intervention by the government is appropriate, but we
are not there yet with City Markets.
My simple intervention was for the Minister of Labour to ask the company
what is going on and to seek assurances that the rights of workers are
being protected. I did meet with Mr. Winford. It was a good meeting,
which reviewed the difficulties that the company faces. It appears that
they are suffering from a bad market, some issues relating to the
management choices made by the company when it was first bought by the
Barbados cum Trinidadian company and from pilferage, euphemistically
called ‘shrinkage’.
The Bahamas Supermarkets CEO assured me that money is not being taken
out of The Bahamas, but is in fact being put into The Bahamas by Neal
and Massey, the ultimate owners of the company. He assured me that his
company has a long term commitment to the success of City Markets. It
appeared to me that there was a communications problem internally with
the staff, which he also assured me he would seek to correct by visiting
all stores and speaking to the employees. I am advised that he has
done so.
It is not an easy decision for a Member of Parliament to decide to
intervene in matters of this kind, because the question is - where does
the greater public interest lie: in trying quiet diplomacy or in making
the matter public and risking further harm to the company that you
really hope to save? I chose the route of public intervention. One of
the roles of a Member of Parliament is to shape the public debate and to
air issues that would normally not see the light of day. I hope that
in making the intervention that I did, I have served the larger public
interest.
There are thousands of Bahamian shareholders of City Markets who are
waiting for a return to profitability. A half hour meeting with a CEO
is not a forensic audit, so one never knows, but the meeting seemed a
sincere effort to correct some impressions and to urge continued
patience as the company works its way back to profitability.
I want to thank Mr. Winford for the seriousness with which he has dealt
with this matter and his commitment to making things work. I will
continue to monitor the situation. I hope for all of our sakes that the
company succeeds, including for the sake of the naysaying Rick Lowe,
who may well not have had General Motors vehicles to sell but for the
intervention of the US Government and who, I assume, sells some of his
cars to those same City Market employees. It should go without saying
that if those employees are without work then they won’t be able to buy
any cars from Nassau Motors, which, after all, is presumably a main aim
of his life.
Yours sincerely,
Fred Mitchell MP Fox Hill
© Copyright 2010 by thebahamasweekly.com
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