Prime Minister and Minister of Finance the Rt. Hon. Hubert Ingraham stated the government’s position with regard to ownership of shares of the Grand Bahama Port Authority, indicating meantime that progress is taking place with regard to the protracted legal battle between the owners of the Company.

Prime Minister Ingraham said:

“The government of The Bahamas owned 7.5 percent of the shares in the Grand Bahama Port Authority. Up to about the year 1980, it was clear that government continued to act as though it owned those shares.

“The government continued to appoint directors and continued to appoint proxies to represent it at shareholders meetings. The Company continued to put in the public record and in its internal record that the government owned 7.5 percent of the Port Authority. The government, for some reason, discontinued sometime between 1980 and 1982, acting as though it owned any shares.

“It is believed that the government sold the shares. There is a mystery about how that sale may have taken place. The government is not now asserting its right to the ownership of the shares. But the government has said in court that it is the ‘owner of record’ of 7.5 percent of the shares of the Grand Bahama Port Authority.

“The government reserves its position with respect to that 7.5 percent position, and the extent to which the owners of the Port are unwilling or unable to settle their dispute as between them being the registered owners of 92.5 percent of the shares, will help to influence and determine at what point the government asserts what it considers to be a legal right.”

When questioned on his view of the ongoing legal dispute between the owners of the Port Authority, Mr. Ingraham said, “Things are happening…we are nearer now than we were before.”