The Tribune

WITH THE Bahamas experiencing the most serious economic slump in living memory, the new Christie government has appointed the largest cabinet in Bahamian history with the promise of additions to be made at mid-term.

Mr Christie, in making his announcement, said he had hoped for a smaller cabinet, but the "extraordinary challenges" now facing the country demanded he assemble a cabinet capable of tackling the problems on a broad front.

He indicated that at mid-term he would be making ministerial adjustments to bring into the cabinet some of government's backbenchers, not selected in the first go-round.

This was important to him, he said, having committed himself to promoting a "new generation" of candidates into his government during the next five years.

He did not make himself clear whether the second shift after mid-term would be in addition to, or whether some of those who had served in the first term would go through the revolving door to make way for the new faces. It seems that in his anxiety to please his MPs, and give them all a taste of power, he has forgotten that it is the Bahamian people who will have to foot this extravagant bill.

Of course, Mr Christie has not been in charge long enough to know whether the Public Treasury can afford this drain on the Bahamian people's purse. However, while in opposition he seemed to know enough about the health of the Treasury to criticise the Ingraham government for taking the country too far into debt.

Mr Christie, obviously anticipating criticism, pointed out that his present cabinet is about the same size as that announced by Mr Ingraham in 2007.

Let's examine this statement. We recall that the late Sir Lynden Pindling worked with a rather small cabinet.

When the PLP were voted from office in 1992, there were 15 cabinet ministers. In August of that year, when Mr Ingraham won the government, he appointed a 13-member cabinet. At the end of its five-year term in 1997, the FNM government appointed 14 cabinet ministers. That was the year that Mr Ingraham decided to take into his cabinet junior MPs to prepare them for ministerial responsibility. With the addition of six ministers of state, the total members of cabinet came to 20. At the end of the Ingraham term in office, the cabinet was back to 16 members.

In 2002, the government changed hands with Mr Christie's PLP becoming the government. Mr Christie appointed a 17-member cabinet. Another five years passed, general elections were held and this time Mr Ingraham and a 20-member cabinet was back in office. Of that number, 12 cabinet members were ministers with portfolios, the other eight were ministers of state. At the end of Mr Ingraham's five-year term, he had 12 ministers with portfolios and four ministers of state, a total of 16 cabinet ministers.

The PLP have started off with a bang, blowing a big hole in the Treasury's finances at a time when the nation should still be belt tightening. Of his 21-member cabinet, four are ministers of state.

Of course, all during their campaigning the PLP made it clear that they were for the people, while, they said, the FNM was for repairing the country's infrastructure, which had the two-fold purpose of providing jobs in a slow economy, and upgrading the country's infrastructure to be in a position to attract the tourist dollar when foreigners again had extra money with which to take a vacation.

Mr Christie's bloated cabinet shows that he is still looking out for his people first.

We think that we should once again bring to his attention the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner report, a company hired by the PLP after its 2007 election loss to find out what went wrong.

In appointing his 21-member cabinet, and saying that at mid-term he would accommodate those left sitting on the backbench, he forgot a sentence in the Rosner report that warned: "There is a perception among voters ... that the PLP has become more focused on doing things that benefit its own politicians than for people."

If this government wants to succeed we suggest that Mr Christie keep this report on the top of his desk at all times -- and open it often.