The Tribune

“THE Bahamas has come a long way in three and a half years!” boasts PLP Chairman Bradley Roberts in a release sent to the press on Tuesday ridiculing observations made by FNM Deputy Leader Peter Turnquest on government’s poor performance.

We agree with Mr Roberts – the PLP government has certainly come a long way in three and a half years — walking backwards all the way. Sometime ago, Prime Minister Christie commented that his government was indeed the bridge from the past into the future. If true, his government must have lost its way as soon as it took the first step, or else the bridge collapsed in mid-passage.

Mr Roberts is wasting his time talking statistics to the Bahamian people.

“It is a fact,” said Mr Roberts, “that the government has engaged in much heavy lifting over the past three years to put the country’s fiscal house in order and to turn around the country’s number one industry.”

He tries to argue away the dismal report given by the Department of Statistics on the latest unemployment figures. But really he is wasting his time. These figures mean nothing to the man in the street without a job and without hope of a job in an economy that has been put on hold because of the uncertainty of the future under this government. Value Added Tax (VAT) contributed to the slow-down. Businesses are now so successful in the collection of government’s taxes that John Rolle, the Ministry of Finance’s financial secretary, has announced that VAT continues to outperform expectations with government on target to enjoy a net $300-$350 million revenue increase for the 2015-2016 fiscal year. Yet government has no plans to take VAT off healthcare services and health insurance premiums because it does not know from where the funds will come to replace the lost revenue. And so the poor must carry the burden of VAT for their health care, yet government expects health providers to cut their own fees to accommodate those who can’t afford their services.

Yes, Mr Roberts, you are now wasting your time talking statistics to Bahamians who see only a failed economy and, as far as they are concerned, do not know where the next dollar is coming from. They have no faith that government will succeed in “wrestling crime to the ground” having failed in its election promise that if elected they had the answer to almost immediately end the scourge.

Instead of decreasing, murders have escalated to record proportions — 147 murders this year – unheard of in the history of a once peaceful Bahamas. Of course, the press has so concentrated on the fatalities, that it has lost count of the shootings, where there are serious injuries, but no loss of life. Some Bahamians today — a country in which guns are outlawed –apparently go to parties with a weapon in their hip pocket, or certainly within easy reach should they want to settle an argument.

So there is no sense to continue to promise to reduce crime when all that has happened in the past three and a half years has been a steady escalation. Bahamians who live in neighbourhoods where at night the sound of a gun is now more frequent than the sound of a barking dog, have lost faith in their leaders and have turned a deaf ear to their promises.

And as for the men and women who can’t find employment they scoff at the hollow words of Labour Minister Shane Gibson that despite the latest Labour Force Survey, “The Bahamas has made tremendous strides since the global recession and more Bahamians are in fact working”.

Promises after promises have failed and yet the Prime Minister and his government continue to promise, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the Bahamian people are no longer listening.

Nothing seems to be going right. For example, such small things as keeping traffic lights on are neglected until an accident forces action. This is what happened about two weeks ago at the junction of Shirley Street and Kemp Road where the traffic light had been off for over a month, despite numerous complaints having been made to the Ministry of Works. But no one paid any attention, until, during the busy morning rush hour on December 14, a car overturned at the junction. Within hours, Ministry staff were on the job and had reactivated the traffic signals.

A letter in The Tribune yesterday by boat by Capt Jack Calicoe reports that several important navigational lights are out – one for more than a year and the others for months, yet nothing is done. He also complains of new lights having been installed at the end of Potters Cay dock in such a manner that they blind an approaching boat. If not corrected, he warned, it will eventually result in a small boat getting run down.

We invite Capt Jack to keep us informed as to how long it takes to prod the authorities into action, or do we have to have another accident — this time at sea – for someone to take their duties seriously? Read his letter on page 4 of yesterday’s Tribune.

Many years ago, a tax was put on gas, earmarked for the upkeep of the roads, yet New Providence roads are potmarked with potholes.

Bahamians are distressed, they have lost faith in their leaders. They want a change.

The following is typical of notes that we receive from our readers.

“Unfortunately,” said the writer, “while I pray daily for my children and grandchildren, the beloved country is no more. I do not know these people and cannot own them. The evil which is endemic from the top down with the sense that the leaders do not care about the damage their actions afflict on all of us leaves me in a constant state of despair with the only bright spots coming from my family.”

And one knows that this is the end game when Ortland Bodie, a prolific letter writer, who proclaims in almost every letter he writes his blind loyalty to the PLP, now suggests that “the only hope for the FNM is for the return of Hubert Ingraham. The state of the nation mandates strong, clear-headed and visionary leadership.”

And, as for what might have been, a reader has sent an item from Facebook announcing the airlift of tourists once expected to arrive from Beijing to the Bahamas with the opening of Baha Mar, having changed course for Cuba. On Sunday after a 19 and a half hour flight, with a stop in Montreal, Air China landed at the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana. This is the beginning of regular flights to Cuba. It was reported that already between, January and November this year, 25,777 Chinese tourists have visited Cuba.

Despite the gloom, we hope that somewhere in that overcast cloud a silver lining can be found for The Bahamas in 2016.

And so we wish all of our readers a very happy new year.