EDITOR, The Tribune
It appears the Gross Domestic Product of The Bahamas is too high to allow the country to get favourable financing to combat climate change – or so I read in a report from the Paris Conference on climate change last week. And, of course, climate change will have a huge affect on The Bahamas as most of the islands are low lying. So what to do?
It is interesting that the Bahamian submission to the conference seems to be about how much money do we get rather than that which would appear to be more important – what we are doing to help improve the environmental issue that causes climate change. In fact, The Bahamas seems to be going the other way by discouraging people to use alternative energy resources.
So if that is the Bahamian concern (lack of cheap money), how about tightening the financial controls on tax receipts received by the government? These seem to be rather lax according to the Auditor General’s reports and put aside some funds for climate control rather like an asue. The never ending drain on taxpayers’ funds from BEC, Bahamasair etc, does not help but they could be sold so that with a little bit of financial genius there would be enough money not only to pay for climate change issues but finance the new National Health Insurance scheme.
It would also cut down on borrowing costs and along with the asue money could perhaps put a stop to the continual borrowing of funds every time the government has to spend a penny or two.
Maybe some of the now legal betting shops could help with this.
P THOMSON
Nassau,
December 13, 2015.
Comments
MonkeeDoo 8 years, 4 months ago
This letter is right on target. The essence of Christie's speech in Paris, bemoaning the Bahamas ineligibility for free money was amazing. But my God, we must be one of the worst polluting countries in the world. One of the easiest things in the Bahamas is getting an inspection sticker for your clapped out car, belching black smoke through the tailpipe, as you pass a few dollars for the inspector to have lunch. And I have never seen a policeman pull a car, bus or truck over because of obvious emission problems. Then we have the City Dump which is set on fire periodically so that the Company that puts the fires out can log another successful outing and submit its invoice. Not to even mention the seawater pollution from BEC at Clifton Pier. If Christie had at least promised to clean up these disgusting standards, one might have had a little pity on his poor arse.
Sign in to comment
Or login with:
OpenID