The Tribune

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell, who has taken leave of absence this year to represent the Bahamas at various meetings around the world, made it clear last year that his ambition is to retire from the PLP government “with a comfortable life”. He would also like to “continue to prosper with respect while no longer actively involved in public policy”.

Meanwhile, he wants “benefits and allowances” for members of parliament to be reviewed and increased and a new parliament building constructed.

In one breath he says the citizens of “the country have an obligation to resist the air of unreality that now surrounds us where unreasonable demands are being made in the face of the cold hard fact that there is no money”, while on the other he wants millions to be found to construct a new parliament building for the comfort of parliamentarians.

He would like to retire in respectable comfort while there are pockets of poverty in this country where Bahamians pray just to be able to put a loaf of bread on the table.

“Look at this place,” said Mr Mitchell during the budget debate as he described the aging building in which for a few months of the year he represents his Fox Hill constituents. “It is a dump.”

“The staff,” he huffed, “is sitting upon one another, packed in like the poor, three to a bed. The bathrooms are shared with the public and the members and the staff. The facilities for the press are inadequate. No offices for Members; no privacy when meeting constituents; it is impossible. The facilities for the public to come and see meetings to access the history of the place, the records, all inadequate, but, no, we must stay right where we are sinking down into this dump and the mud. There are no meeting rooms. It is not clean.

“It is disgraceful that in 2014 we are still in a building built to reflect the choices and styles of a country in the early 19th century in 2014 and we say that this reflects what we are today. If this is what reflects what we are today, we are in a sad state. I say it does not, and we need a new building.”

Yes, it is a sad state. But the Treasury is in and even sadder state and can’t afford to entertain the wishes of our gradiose politicians in our present circumstances. The needs of the people will have to come first.

There was squeamish unease when Nassau Village MP Dion Smith (PLP), deputy speaker of the House, complained that his “frighteningly” poor constituents are distressed because they are unable to “feel” their government. By the same token, there are many in the lofty halls of parliament who cannot feel what Mr Smith has described as a “suffering that knows no party lines.”

“The most hurtful part,” said Mr Smith, “is they go home to a house where children are crying from hunger and they have nothing to eat. This is real talk, this is real life and this is really happening in my constituency.”

What must these people think when they hear their representatives, who return to comfortable homes and three hearty meals a day, demand of a country where “there is no money” to find millions to build them a comfortable place in which to do the people’s business during a few months of the year?

“The people of the Nassau Village constituency demand our fair share of this budget,” said Mr Smith. “Grand Bahama has gotten their fair share of this budget, but the people of the Nassau Village constituency are saying that they are in a similar state of that of Grand Bahama and they demand the attention of this government.”

Mr Smith called on the government to uphold all of the promises made during the PLP’s election campaign, specifically job creation.

“The cry in my constituency is jobs,” he told House members during the Budget debate. “Every time I find one job, ten more constituents come seeking employment. The density of poverty is so severe that it is frightening.

“Too many people in the Nassau Village constituency go home to a house with no light, Mr Speaker, too many go home to a house with no water, or to a cupboard with no food.

“They have told me they will not sit silently in anticipation of relief. They want to make sure they get their just due of the 5,000 new permanent jobs to be created at Baha Mar and the spin off jobs to be created as a result of this new mega resort.”

The young Turks in government have found their voices and are speaking out about what they find unacceptable in a government that has lost touch with the people.

MICAL MP V Alfred Gray is from the old school that regards politics as a game – if you spin your dice in the right direction, you survive, if not its the end of a political career. Mr Gray has advised this new breed, who say they have been sent to parliament to put their constituents before the party, not to be so “fast with their tongue”. What Mr Gray has not grasped, but apparently the new generation has, is that Bahamians did not vote them into the halls of parliament to play games, and keep their mouths shut. They got the votes to represent the interests of their constituents, not the old party hacks.

However, according to National Security Minister Dr Bernard Nottage, if Mr Smith’s Nassau Village constituents cannot “feel” the government, the fault lies with Mr Smith, their representative, not with the government.

“They talk about who is out of touch,” said Dr Nottage, “Mr Speaker, if you are in politics and you are elected by the constituency and you, a representative of the party (get those concerns), if the party has lost touch with the people it could only be because you are out of touch with the people.”

If the likes of Dr Nottage continue on that blind route, come 2017 they will be in the same position as was former prime minister Lynden Pindling, who after 25 years, lost his government.

Sitting in his Conch Sound, Andros, constituency after a resounding defeat in August, 1992, a dejected Sir Lynden admitted: “I think that what we were overcome by was the depth of hardship in the two main metropolitan areas.

“We knew people were hurting, we knew that homes were being sold, we knew that parents were taking kids out of school. We didn’t think that this would have affected them so dramatically in determining what they would do during the election.”

Just remember, Mr Politician, when memories grow dim, history repeats itself.