This is not just mismanagement. This is grand fraud with public money.
The correspondence from the Central Bank of The Bahamas has confirmed what the Opposition and the public feared: the National Investment Fund (NIF) was never truly operating—and therefore no legally valid NIF account exists.
In its response to queries from my office, the Central Bank has confirmed the following:
There is no functioning NIF Board.
The NIF Board has not convened.
The NIF Board has never established operations or taken Board action.
Without a Board meeting and Board authority, the NIF could not have established the required bank account under the NIF framework.
As there is no functioning Board, the NIF could not have authorized any banking arrangements. Of course, without an established account under Board supervision as required by the NIF Act, there could clearly be no lawful NIF payments, transfers, or investments authorized by the Fund.
The Central Bank also indicates that the Governor was appointed effective June 2025. Yet neither the Governor—as a Board member—nor the Central Bank has undertaken any activity connected to the NIF ever since.
The Central Bank indicates the Government has apparently opened an account at the Central Bank under the Name “National Investment Fund.”
Labeling an account with a name is not the same as a legally established NIF account.
The NIF Act gives sole authority to the NIF Board to establish accounts and manage NIF resources—not to the Government, by side arrangement, outside the formal governance structure.
Bottom line: There is no lawful National Investment Fund account established and operated through the NIF Board. There is instead only a Ministry of Finance controlled account at the Central Bank that has been passed off deceivingly as an “NIF account.”
It is abundantly clear to us that the Davis Administration has been lying to the Bahamian people.
The Minister lied in his Budget Speech to Parliament about transferring money to the actual Fund.
The Ministry of Finance reports are fraudulent in their claims that monies were transferred to the NIF and paid out by the NIF. The NIF does not have an account and the NIF has not authorized any payments.
In fact, the Minister of Finance has still provided no proof of the necessary Parliamentary appropriations to transfer the $700 million in excess borrowing to any account under any name.
Instead, the Davis administration apparently has been running a side account outside of the country’s legal and budget framework established under the Constitution and the Public Finance Management Act.
Instead of operating through the legally mandated NIF processes, the Government decided to use an off-book arrangement.
It’s given this Administration the opportunity to spend millions outside proper oversight and lawful budgetary reporting. And to do so in an election year.
And when we and the media have asked, the Davis administration refuses to say where the money went.
No credible accounting. No lawful justification. No accountability.
The Government must answer one simple question:
If the NIF Board never met to transact any matter, then who legally authorized:
1. The opening of any account in the NIF’s name;
2. The deposits into that account, and;
3. The withdrawals from that account?
To the Prime Minister and to his Minister of Finance: Your job when you return to Parliament this Wednesday is to come clean.
Admit you broke the law. Accept responsibility. Account for every penny spent through this side arrangement.
Then let the law take its course.