Ratings agency concerns unfair, says Bahamas PM

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Published on Thursday, 02 August 2012 12:40

Written by Taneka Thompson

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Nassau, Bahamas (Nassau Guardian): Prime Minister Perry Christie said on Tuesday that a Wall Street credit ratings agency’s questioning of the Bahamas government’s intent to renationalize the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) is “unfair." On Monday Edward Al-Hussainy, assistant vice-president and analyst at Moody’s, told The Nassau Guardian that the agency had reached out to the government to find out how the Christie administration will pay for the proposed renationalization.

But Christie said that neither he nor Minister of State for Finance Michael Halkitis have spoken with Moody’s about its concerns. “No representative of Moody’s has spoken to me,” Christie said when asked to respond to the comments at a press conference on Tuesday. “No representative of Moody’s has raised any questions to me about my declared intention in representing the government of The Bahamas to commence discussions with BTC with respect to acquiring the majority interests of shares of BTC for Bahamians.”

He said he found out about the Moody’s probe into the proposed buy-back of BTC when he read about it in the newspaper. When asked how much it would cost the government to regain control of BTC, Christie said, “You can do the mathematics and find out if two percent will give us the majority interest, you can do the mathematics based on what they paid for it.” He added: “They can’t come to me with a special value and so forth. That’s why we are going to have discussions. We are motivated by what we regard as the best interests of the Bahamian people.”

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