Prime Minister Hubigetty made huge budget cuts to BahamasAir.

We have been in talks with our colleagues around town and in the Ministry of Finance, and we have come to the startling conclusion. The Government of the Bahamas is broke. They have run out of cash, and they are not telling you that they are broke.

Zhivargo Laing has admitted publically that revenues are down. We are in a down turn. We have had lay-offs, massive layoffs in the tourism industry. The government cannot do anything because there is no money.

The well has run dry. The government simply cannot go for more debt, because they are committed to the IMF to keep debt below 40% of GDP and we are almost there . Actually we are over the top, but through some fancy accounting, we are magically below that figure.

So there you have it. You read it here first. It will be interesting to see how long this takes before the powers that be admit it. This is indeed some jollification for Christmas.

If you think things can't get worse it's probably only because you lack sufficient imagination. Case in point. That falkin' bastid Hubigetty is doing to the country again. No, he isn't tiefin like Crisco Butt and his merry band of bumbangers, but he is taking the country down the wrong path.

One of the prime components of a well developed society is the ability to communicate, and the telecommunications infrastructure. Hubigetty previously went on record as saying that he would privatise BTC by the end of the year. But first he would kick out the shysters Bluewater who don't know a telephone company from their asses, but have Frankie the Snake's money behind them. All they want, is their greedy stinking paws on the $300 million or so that the dinosauric phone company generates.

Well, after Farquie the union boss pulled out in shrimpy weenie and shut down the town with BTC union members, both Hubigetty and BTC chairman have lost their appetite for actually shaping up the telephone company. They just want to get rid of it.

Our peeps tell us that in fact the privatisation has indeed been decided and the telephone company will go to Bluewater after all. Like Pontius Pilate they are washing their hands.

But get this. Bluewater shouldn't cheer too much if this is indeed true. The monopoly period will be for a year only, and then they will be handing out wireless licences to all comers. Bluewater will be running like a gutshot deer with it blood and guts trailing. There is no way that they will earn their money back, and they will become another Cotton Bay or City Markets and it will look good on that falkin Frankie Wilson.

But while this scenario will be ultimately good for the telephone consumer, the ordinary joes and businesses will suffer. Tourists will not be able to phone home, and we will all suffer deteriorating conditions until a real phone operator comes in a year later.

Tomorrow, you may read in the Punch, of an ex-CIBC banker who is being charged with aiding and abetting a fraudulent transaction -- in this case, a cheque for $150,000. The story is that he processed the cheque without waiting for the funds to clear, and the cheque was a fraudulent American Dollar cheque.

We have been looking at the strange happenings at First Caribbean (formally the CIBC or Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) for some time now, but this case takes the cake. In brief, the story is that a man named Williams brought a cheque to the bank for a property transaction in 2002. It was an American dollar cheque with a face value of $150,000. In spite of the fact that the cheque was brought in by Williams, it was deposited to the account of Cecil Smith.

Cecil Smith is an ethically challenged air conditioning contractor in Nassau who made his money by having an open-ended service contract at the airport that he milked for big bucks. He was also the guy who paid for a campaign party for Tommy Turnquest that got Tommy into trouble. The way that it worked, was that Turnquest granted Smith the contract against the advice of the Ministry of Works, and the quid pro quo was a $31,000 party thrown for Tommy on Paradise Island. All in all, Smith is an unsavoury character.

Cecil Smith was a valued client at the bank because of the large sums of money that he lau... errrr deposited. The bank manager was told to take care of Cecil personally. In those halcyon days of banking, often times the deal was done and the paperwork was completed after the fact.

At the bank's urging, the manager processed the cheque which turned out to be fraudulent. Cecil Smith gets the money and refuses to pay it back. A police investigation ensued and the Financial Crimes unit absolved the banker and Williams of any criminal wrongdoing.

Spring forward six years later. All of a sudden, at the behest of rogue elements in the Attorney General's office and First Caribbean, the case is opened and the ex-Banker and Williams are charged with aiding and abetting this $150,000 fraud. But ... get this ... the guy who actually got the money -- Cecil Smith is not being charged. If you or I deposited a fake cheque, you can be sure that the bank and the police would be on our asses so fast that you couldn't blink.

This raises some important questions? Who and why is pushing this case now, when the police absolved the two individuals? And why is not Cecil Smith being charged with fraud? Could it be that something bigger is going on? When Michael Barnett the attorney general was apprised of the case, he knew nothing about it. Why is First Caribbean conducting a vendetta against these two while protecting Cecil Smith? And who instituted the action in the attorney General's office without the Attorney General knowing? Could it be that someone is trying to hush up something bigger?

Back in the day, CIBC had a prime client -- John Bull. The Hazelwoods, the original white knights ran John Bull and their bank was the CIBC. Their account was looked after by Terry Hilts and Walter Wells. Terry Hilts has been in the Bahamas for 40 years with the CIBC and has donned the mantle of respectability. We invite Mr. Hilts and Mr. Wells to sue us, because we are accusing them of being white collar criminals who aided the Hazelwoods and John Bull in evading millions of dollars of stamp tax payable to the Bahamas government treasury, and we have the documents to prove it.

It worked this way. John Bull had a shell entity in Freeport. Freeport is a free port -- no stamp tax on outgoing bank drafts. John Bull imported millions of dollars of inventory into their Nassau New Providence operations. They didn't even try to launder the goods through tax-free Freeport. When it came time to pay the suppliers, Terry Hilts and Walter Wells of the CIBC would make sure that the draft went into the CIBC pouch to Freeport, where it was paid by the Freeport branch of the CIBC -- attributed to the shell entity in Freeport that John Bull ran. In other words, they pretended that the Freeport John Bull office was the actual recipient of the goods and were just paying their bills. The group criminally evaded millions and millions of dollars in stamp tax.

Guess who found out about this criminal enterprise? It was the good old cabinet rapist, Bradley Roberts. He tried to make hay of this but it was quickly buried by none other than Hubert Ingraham, the Prime Minister. Why would you ask? Well, Hubert wasn't that good with money, and his personal overdraft is now at over $500,000, with who ??? --- the CIBC or First Caribbean as it is now known. Now this overdraft is unsecured. Sharon Brown who runs First Caribbean is shitting bricks, and good old Hubert Ingraham gave her the old quid pro quo. So yes, we are accusing Hubert Alexander Ingraham of perfidy and hiding lawlessness because he owes First Caribbean half a million dollars.

Here is what we do know. The 2002 case of prosecuting everyone but Cecil Smith will blow up in the face of First Caribbean. They will be liable for millions of dollars in damages and they will be willing sued by Brave Davis who is the attorney of record. In between doing Jamaican prostitutes, First Caribbean will be on the hook, and for the loan to Hubigetty as well. Sharon Brown is supposedly on vacation now, but she should be shitting bricks. Terry Hilts should be getting worried because we are forwarding a package of documents to CIBC in Canada, as well as the White Collar Crimes Unit of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

God does play dice with the university. There is an element of supreme irony here. John Bull was named after a character in British satire who penned an article "The Law is a Bottomless Pit". In the Bahamas, this is so true.

Hubert Ingraham should resign. Enough is enough in this damn country full of underhanded niggeritis, lying, porkbarrelling, criminality and injustice. We have become a nation of sub-human animals where truth and goodness take a back seat to the almighty dollar, and the high road is just for suckers. If we had the reins of government, people like Hilts, Wells, Smith, Hubigetty, Roberts and the lot of them would be carrying their own slop buckets in Fox Hell. The day is coming, and the mills of God grind slowly and exceedingly fine. Some day the perpetrators will pay, and that will be the day of real Majority Rule in this country. So mote it be.

Poor Khodee Davis -- the kid stabbed to death on Cabbage Beach. His funeral was a Carnival Cruise -- without the ships. There was beer-drinking, swearing and someone made an awful lot of money on tee-shirts. A cop was knocked over by someone on a dirt bike. Fweddie Mitchell  marched front and center. It was so hot that that his hair dye was melting. Fweddie was like Michael Vick at a dogfight. We are a ghetto nation and Fweddie is at the front of the line.

And we have Raytard Rigby, ex-Chair of the PLP saying that there is no conspiracy between him and Obie to oust Crisco Butt. He then went on to say that for a man of 60, Crisco Butt is surprisingly senile. Raytard thinks that Bahamians have a well developed immune system and a high tolerance for bullshit. In the meantime, the secret cabal intent on a hostile takeover is running for cover.

The news is out that Hubigetty is resisting a cabinet shuffle. Some of his cabinet ministers were sweating like a Bahamian highschool student taking a literacy test. Word is that Hubigetty, and the general populace including the Bloggy Boyz are not pleased with performance to date.

New budget is coming out. We would rather watch the Paris Hilton sex video. Doctor Zhivago, the junior finance minister is saying that the government needs another $200 million in recurring revenues just to eliminate the deficit. Brent Kitchenette said that he would go and ask his mother's estate for an increase in his allowance so that he could cover the deficit. If that doesn't happen, with the decline in tourism, we are truly heading to hell in handcart. Bay Street is left largely to the rats, and it is no surprise that this is the year of the Rat in more ways than one. There are so many rats downtown, that one came up to us casually and said hello -- but it was just Obie Wilchcombe.

Another gay activist murdered. Found dead in a swimming pool. We can help out with the clues on this one. There is a rogue policeman connected.

And this lovely missive comes to us. We will quote it directly:

Portia Smith, the "secretary" to House Speaker Alvin Smith (no relation), is the fiancee of drug dealer Gordon "Hog" Newbold. Smith, 34, is not a qualified secretary and she is barely literate. She is a clerk in the public service. Smith brought her in to work with him after his appointment as speaker not because of her secretarial talents, but because of her alleged talents as a fellatrix.

Newbold, a member of the infamous Newbold family, is the youngest brother of drug dealer and numbers boss Autry Newbold. Hog Newbold is fighting extradition to the United States. He was indicted in 2004 as part of the Pedro Smith and Melvin Maycock Sr drug gangs. He has been on bail since 2006 and recently bought Portia a 2008 Chevy Tahoe, which is the same color (beige) as his Chevy Avalanche. The portly secretary has a penchant for Prada, Gucci and Cartier.

She was dating Newbold while married to a policeman, PC 1396 Terrel Smith, a speed cop. She used to bribe officers at Central Police Station to allow her and Newbold to have sex in the station's bathroom. Her husband was knocked off his bike and kept on life support until his death five months later. The affair continued throughout his illness.

Smith still spends most of her time with Newbold when she should be working. She often slips out to visit him at his home in Seagull Gardens Yamacraw Hill Road. She also attends his court cases. Newbold has served time for attempted murder and is a suspect in the unsolved drug-related murder of Dion Lafleur in Janauary 2003. Newbold has never worked a day in his life. He sells drugs from the family homestead in The Grove. He likes to ride motorbikes and prefers this mode of transportation.

Should a woman with criminal ties be working in a place where policy is decided?

So there you have it. Another heartless day in the Bahamaland. We are hungry and in the mood for Chinese. That means something completely different for Fweddie. For us, it means woking the cockroach. So mote it be.