The Tribune

SUDDENLY, the Christie government has discovered that the world is in an economic crisis, which strangely is retarding the growth of the Bahamas’ economy. However, when the slump came shortly after the Ingraham government took over the administration in 2007, Mr Christie, then in Opposition, was apparently unaware that the world was in trouble, and that the Bahamas, as a part of that world, was also in financial hot water.

According to the Christie-led Opposition at that time, our slow-down then was due to the incompetence of the Ingraham government. Opposition Leader Hubert Minnis took the opportunity yesterday to remind Mr Christie of his amnesia, and scoffed at his “gall” to stand in the House of Assembly and finally “admit that the world economy is still not growing as rapidly as they expected and this would have some impact on the Bahamian economy”.

For your information, Mr Prime Minister, this is what has been affecting our economy since 2007 when banks crashed and the bubble burst taking our economic fortunes with them. It has been a struggle ever since, not just for the Bahamas, but for the world.

This period has experienced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression when on October 29, 1929, the US stock market crashed. The US did not come out of that tail spin until the bombing of Pearl Harbour and its entry into World War II. It was then that the factories started to hum with activity, churning out the machinery needed for war – aircraft, ships, artillery. It even assisted the Bahamas when young Americans were taken from the farms, put in uniform and sent to fight in Europe. There was a fear in the Bahamas that with America at war supplies to the Bahamas would be cut off, and Bahamians would starve. Not so, strapped for labour, Bahamians were needed to fill the vacancies left on American farms when the “boys marched off to war”. And so what became known as “the Project” provided jobs for Bahamians on American farms with money flowing home to their families in Nassau.

In the House yesterday, government presented its mid-term budget, which in reality was not a budget at all, but a plea for more money.

It announced that it had to borrow $100 million more to take care of the debts left behind by the Ingraham government — forgetting, of course, that as Opposition it had voted funds to pay for those debts.

According to Mr Halkitis the debt is purely the result of carry over expenditure tied to $63.14m in unpaid cheques and wire transfers, $23m owed to participants of the 52-week job programme and $10.86m in lump sum payments owed to the teacher’s and public service unions.

“They have exhausted their borrowing facilities and now have had to go hat in hand to further borrowing,” Dr Minnis told reporters at a press conference in the House’s opposition room.

Dr Minnis said he was surprised by the government’s claim that they were “startled” by the extra $100 million owed by government.

“You must recall that every loan that we had obtained was brought to parliament and the opposition had voted along with us, they never opposed,” he said.

Dr Minnis said his party agreed with government’s expenditure control plans, but suggested it was being implemented after the government already “went wild” increasing the size of the public service, thus increasing its expenditure.

He said when the FNM was in power it was attempting to “right-size” the economy, only to have the PLP “wrong-size” it in it’s first several months as the governing party.

What is going to happen is that the Bahamian people are going to end up having to pay for the election promises that the PLP felt obliged to keep by its hiring practices, its bloated cabinet, its enlarged diplomatic corps, the additional staff added to such departments at NIB. This is the area that the Opposition has to investigate and demand accountability on funds spent.

As for Urban Renewal 2.0 —credited with being the brainchild of Prime Minister Christie — Bahamians are entitled to know how the $15 million budgeted for this projected has been spent — many say “wasted.”

According to Deputy Prime Minister Brave Davis, who has Urban Renewal in his portfolio, some of the funds have been used for intelligence gathering—one would have thought that this was the responsibility of the police force — also in fulfilling promises made by the PLP in its election manifesto.

A great deal of money has been spent on clearing large tracts of land, tearing down derelict buildings and generally removing hiding places for the criminal. But apparently, even this got out of hand without proper organisation. The large sums of money spent on land clearing, if true, is a scandal. It is claimed that persons who cleared land, did the job and then submitted a bill.

On several occasions, we have mentioned the case of a man now in prison who had several Urban Renewal jobs while out on remand. It is claimed that he was paid $60,000 for his work, but complains that he is still owed $180,000. This seems absolutely preposterous, but now the story is being told that one of the jobs was worth no more than $40,000.

However, so the tale goes, he insisted that he had to put it up to $140,000 so that he would have enough to take care of his bail. True or false? We cannot say. However, the person who is telling the tale claims that it is true, because it was his tools borrowed for the job.

This might be a tall tale, that grows taller with the telling. However, there are enough stories going the rounds about the wastage of funds on Urban Renewal that Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, on behalf of the Bahamian people, should demand that a forensic audit be done on the spending of these funds.

Remember this is the money of Bahamians, who will soon be asked to make sacrifices to help reduce the public debt.