By RAYMOND KONGWA, Guardian Senior Reporter

raymond@nasguard.com

The government last night came under heavy attack for agreeing to let a Boston based company develop 10,000 acres of a virtually untouched southern island.

Dion Foulkes told a Free National Movement rally last night that most of the land on Mayaguana given to the Boston based I-Group would be sold off as second homes to non-Bahamians.

"The PLP has sold off at fire sale prices almost 10,000 acres of prime real estate on an island of about 300 people," said Mr Foulkes, who is the party's candidate for the MICAL constituency in the next general election . "Most of that land will be split into lots and sold for second homes for non-Bahamians." Said Mr Foulkes: "You do the math; and while you're adding up the PLP's betrayal of our national trust, don't forget a single acre can be divided into several lots. These lots will be sold off at outrageous prices -- and profits -- to the foreign company.

"If the PLP has its way, thousands of non-Bahamians will soon out-number a couple of hundred Mayaguanans who will become strangers in their own island."

Mr Foulkes questioned whether the company, which is in the early development phase of its 50/50 joint venture with the government, was employing sufficient numbers of Bahamians.

"The sad thing about this anchor project in Mayaguana is that over 50 percent of the 85 workers are foreigners from China, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua," said Mr Foulkes. "And they say that is their new model for all the other islands of The Bahamas.

"What the PLP is doing in Mayaguana, they're doing all over the Bahamas: letting foreigners, without money to invest, or without enough money, use our land as collateral to get money," he added. "Their economic policy is quite simple: sell off huge amounts of public land to foreign groups at low prices; then let these same groups resell the same land at huge profits."