How to boost productivity without micromanagement

FROM PAGE A19 on project dates and deadlines. Some work cultures and supervisors are quite relaxed to the point where people feel they can constantly fail and still survive. Keep this in check. Constant failure may point to a greater issue of the employee being overwhelmed, under-skilled or under-funded. claims payouts to blacklisted jurisdictions. Should this take effect, it could prevent Bahamians from adequately rebuilding in the aftermath of future catastrophic climate-related events.

7. Provide clear, positive reinforcement, rewards and recognition for team members who consistently deliver on their project deadlines.

Celebrate those employees and teams who are consistent in their delivery of project success. This serves as motivation for those doing their jobs, as well as those who are not. People need to know that the extra they do matters, is seen and appreciated.

8. Provide employees with the budget allocation and resources, including human resources, required for success in each project. Sand alone cannot build houses. Even great leaders fail when they do not have the resources needed to succeed. Ensure that the right amount of funding and other resources are provided to succeed. While it is understood there are no perfect scenarios, one employee can only be judged on one employee’s amount of work.

Referring to Prime Minister Philip Davis’ address this week to a conference of EU, Caribbean and Latin American nations, Mr Pinder said: “He spoke about, with the EU blacklist against our country, that the insurance industry that is vital to the rebuilding efforts of natural disasters is adversely affected, which in turn adversely affects each and every one of us in this country.

“We can speak specifically to the reinsurance market. Because the EU has indiscriminately blacklisted our country, any remittances paid on claims from European reinsurers, there is a 25 percent withholding. We cannot recover and rebuild in the face of the climate crisis if the financial services penalties put on us by the European Union affect the basic tenants of reinsurance and insurance in this country. Things have to change.”

Echoing the Prime Minister, Mr Pinder called out the 27-nation EU for “inequitable determinations” in including The Bahamas on its ‘tax blacklist’, arguing that this nation has a stronger compliance regime than many developed nations while debating amendments to the Exempted Limited Partnership Act and International Business Companies Act.

He said: “As we know, the financial services industry is an industry that is highly competitive, where our competitors are always looking for an advantage over us, where the goalposts move on a continual basis. It’s an industry where we have the big behemoths to our east and across the pond, who look to themselves being financial centres at the detriment of us.

“It is an industry where we have foreign governments and multilateral institutions doing what they can to discredit our jurisdiction, and to cause for what I call inequitable determinations, blacklists and other opinions that they may have about us even though we are a country who achieves greater things than them, who have better compliance regimes than them, and who have better innovation than them.”

Mr Pinder said Mr Davis made a “convincing argument” on the difficulties that confront blacklisted small nations, adding: “Our prime minister has recently given to the European Union.... my good colleague, Mr Halkitis, was in Brussels with the Prime Minister, championing the country and what I would call a hostile environment in front of the EU, European Commission and its technical bodies.

“The Prime Minister spoke with respect to the effects of climate change on small island developing states. But the Prime Minister also was able to give a convincing argument on how the activities of countries and multilateral organisations like the European Union, through their discriminatory treatment of countries like The Bahamas in financial services matters, have a direct adverse implication on the climate crisis effects on small island developing states.

“The Prime Minister told the European Union to get their foot off the necks of countries like The Bahamas by utilising discriminatory blacklisting activities in the financial services industry. And he described how, with those blacklisting activities and impositions on countries like ours, it affects our ability to recover from natural disasters that those countries themselves have created,” the Attorney General said

“There has to be a holistic view on how this treatment by big economies, who cause climate crises and discriminate against us in the financial services industry, affect us small countries. It’s unfair. And one thing that this government will do, in the face of the big boys in the room, we will punch above our weight.”

“We will make our case known at the highest levels. And we will solicit the support of our colleagues both in the region and worldwide. To demonstrate that we are equal to them, and we should be treated as such.”

Mr Pinder revealed that the Commercial Enterprises Act will be debated in the Senate next week, while the new economic substance reporting portal will be launched in September. He said: “We have a new piece of legislation, a redraft of the Commercial Enterprises

Act that deals with economic substance that we will find in this place next week which will address all the deficiencies of the prior legislation.

“We will also address what has evolved into best practices in economic substance reporting. We will have a new and functional portal up and running by September for the reporting on an economic substance basis.”

Mr Pinder said the changes to the portal and the Commercial Enterprises Act will better position the country to be removed from the EU blacklist when he 27-nation bloc meets again to assess the listings in November.

He said: ”We will be in a position to demonstrate to the European Union, OECD and others that we have the capability to enforce our laws, to enforce those who do not abide by our laws, and to impose the adequate remedies and penalties that are necessary. And we will be in a position to be doing that in November when they come to rewrite this country; to be compliant with the best practices and requirements imposed upon us by the large colonial masters of the past.

“They will likely have something else they want us to do when they come. As a small island developing state, leaders in the international financial centre marketplace, we must punch above our weight. And the fact of the matter is we must do better than they do. We must continue to innovate, we must continue to lead from the front. This is vital to our survivability, vital to our middle class, vital to our social sustainability in this country.”

FTX CHIEF TARGETS BAHAMAS PROPERTY ‘MISAPPROPRIATION’

FROM PAGE A20

The website for the complex states that it offers ‘ultra-luxe’ living next to a ‘spectacular private beach’, ‘large and exclusive’ residences that are ‘meticulously appointed’ and have ‘breathtaking views’, and amenities that include an infinity pool, gym and concierge service.

“Bankman-Fried, Wang and Singh paid for these condominiums using funds fraudulently transferred from the FTX group. Between April and June 2021, Bankman-Fried, Wang and Singh caused FTX to wire the following amounts to Abaco Law Ltd, a firm acting as intermediary between Bankman-Fried, Wang and Singh and the various property owners.”

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Some $2.174m was provided “for the purchase of a unit in Bankman-Fried’s name”, while $1.655m and $1.034m were spent on units for Wang and Singh, respectively. “Although FTX had supplied more than $4.8m to purchase the condominium units, Bankman-Fried, Wang and Singh had the deeds conveyed to themselves rather than to the FTX group entity that paid for the condominiums,” Mr Ray charged.

The “oceanfront complex” was not identified in the lawsuit. However, based on a June 26, 2023, report to the Delaware Bankruptcy Court, in which Mr Ray listed the $243m worth of Bahamian real estate acquired by FTX, the legal action appears to refer to One Cable Beach. The June 26 document shows three condos were purchased in this complex for similar prices, and in corresponding timeframes, as those listed in last night’s legal filing.

Research by Tribune Business found a Securities Commission listing of registered financial and corporate services providers that identified a company called Abaco Law Ltd as having its offices at 28 Bougainvillea Avenue in Nassau. Its senior executive was named as Julian Bostwick, but there is no suggestion that he or the company have done anything wrong in relation to FTX and they are not named as defendants in the lawsuit. “As has been widely reported, defendants caused

Public Notice

INTENT TO CHANGE NAME BY DEED POLL

The Public is hereby advised that I, NATASSIA ASHLEY RIGBY of P.O Box CB 11511 Pinewood Gardens, Southern District, Nassau, Bahamas, intend to change my name to NASTASSIA ASHLEY RIGBY If there are any objections to this change of name by Deed Poll, you may write such objections to the Chief Passport Offcer, P.O.Box N-742, Nassau, Bahamas no later than thirty (30) days after the date of publication of this notice.

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opticalopportunity36@gmail.com the FTX group to spend more than $243m on real estate in The Bahamas, including multi-million dollar luxury properties for defendants and their friends and families,” Mr Ray added. “Defendants funded these real estate purchases from accounts that held commingled customer and corporate funds.

“Using these commingled funds, defendants caused the FTX Group to purchase more than 30 properties, including a $30m, six-bedroom penthouse in the Albany resort community in The Bahamas in January 2022. The property, known as the Orchid Penthouse, was home to Bankman-Fried, Wang, Singh and Ellison prior to the FTX group’s collapse.

“This quarter of a billion in real estate was not necessary for the operations of the FTX group, and conferring such largesse on defendants and their friends and families was done to the detriment of FTX group.”

FTX’s Bahamian real estate purchases thus continue to attract considerable considerable controversy.

For FTX’s Bahamian liquidators last week accused Mr Ray, aided by its local law firm, of going behind their backs in attempting to sell the very same assets. Brian Simms KC, the Lennox Paton senior partner, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) accounting duo, Kevin Cambridge and Peter Greaves, alleged that the US chief and his team confessed to instructing their financial advisers to sell the high-end Bahamian real estate “for cash” without first informing them.

And the Supreme Courtappointed trio also asserted that Mr Ray’s advisers were aided in this effort by the FTX US chief’s Bahamian attorneys, Peter Maynard & Company, with such activities only “causing confusion” as to who has ultimate control of valuable real estate assets - the FTX Digital Markets liquidators or the US chapter 11 proceedings before the Delaware Bankruptcy Court.

The Bahamian liquidators alleged, in legal papers filed with the Delaware court last week, that the actions of Mr Ray’s agents represented a violation of the January 6, 2023, co-operation agreement that had been hammered out with the FTX US chief during last year’s Christmas holiday. This stipulated that the local trio would take the lead in selling-off Bahamian real estate to recover valuable assets on behalf of FTX creditors, with both sides agreeing on the process to be used.

However, Mr Simms and his colleagues are alleging that Mr Ray, who controls the 134 FTX entities in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware, reneged on this agreement by “threatening” that the bid to liquidate the Bahamian real estate would violate the worldwide asset freeze automatically imposed by the US court proceedings.

The Bahamian trio, in their counterclaim to Mr Ray’s late March 2023 lawsuit that seeks to deny them access to any assets caught in the crypto exchange’s multi-billion dollar collapse, then complained that their efforts to find an alternative solution for FTX’s local property assets proved fruitless prior to being informed of Mr Ray’s alleged attempt to seize control.

N O T I C E

CENTRAL CONCO LTD.

N O T I C E IS HEREBY GIVEN as follows:- a) CENTRAL CONCO LTD. is in voluntary dissolution under the provisions of Section 138 (4) of the International Business Companies Act 2000. b) The dissolution of the said company commenced on 18th July, 2023 when the Articles of Dissolution were submitted to and registered by the Registrar General. c) The Liquidator of the said company is Octagon Management Limited, The Bahamas Financial Centre, Shirley & Charlotte Streets, Nassau, Bahamas.

Dated this 21st day of July, A. D. 2023 Octagon Management Limited