“FIRE Moody’s if The Bahamas is given a downgrade for poor performance,” suggested former State Finance Minister James Smith on learning that Moody’s was threatening to downgrade this country’s credit rating within the next two months.
Mr Smith reasoned that although the state of The Bahamas’ economy is relatively weak it is not as weak as some other countries that have not been threatened with a downgrade.
He said government pays agencies such as Moody’s thousands of dollars a year for the rating — noting that when he was Central Bank governor in the 1990s each of the credit rating agencies was paid $40,000 a year. This payment is well worth it if it is the only way that Bahamians will learn the truth about their economy.
However, to threaten non payment when the agency knows that if it does not sound the warning bell there will be an economic crash, is tantamount to trying to bribe the rating agencies for their silence. We certainly would not expect such a suggestion from a respected financier as Mr Smith, but there can be no other logical conclusion to be drawn from his suggestion – keep quiet, or be cut from the payroll!
An absolutely unacceptable, almost contemptible, suggestion – Bahamians are entitled to know the full, unadulterated truth, not the sugar-coated platitudes occasionally thrown to them by government.
And now State Minister for Finance Michael Halkitis is scurrying to the US to try to convince Moody’s and Standard & Poor not to downgrade this poor, tiny, financially misguided nation. We hope Mr Halkitis has sense enough to leave his “firing” gloves at home. Let the financial world learn of our underhand shenanigans and they will themselves throw us on the junk heap, because — whatever the ratings — they will be sceptical of their worth.
It would be better for Mr Halkitis to stay at home and figure out how to cut back on his profligate government’s spending than go crawling to Moody’s and Standard & Poor with his begging bowl in hand.
In February, 2013 – three years ago – Tribune Business reported that Prime Minister Christie in his mid-term budget projected improved revenue yields equivalent to 4 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the centrepiece of its plan to generate a recurrent Budget surplus within three years. He disclosed that planned “structural reforms” would improve revenue yields from their current 17.6 per cent of GDP to 21.5 per cent of GDP by the 2016-2017 fiscal year.
Laying out the medium-term targets designed to tackle The Bahamas’ top policy priority, Mr Christie said more than half this increase - some 2.2 “net” percentage points of GDP - would come from the introduction of a Value-Added Tax (VAT) in 2014-2015.
It’s now 2016 and the Central Bank has urged government to rein in its spending amid a $266m deficit for the first 10 months of the 2015-2016 fiscal year.
According to Tribune Business, the Central Bank in its report on May’s economic developments revealed that the deficit to the end of April this year has increased by almost $37m or 16.1 per cent year-over-year as spending outpaced VAT-led revenue increase.
With all the reported thefts from various government departments, the wastage of money on frivolous projects, the unnecessary and luxurious travelling of certain of our ministers — really our finances warrant a thorough investigation. The unnecessary spending has to stop.
A Vote for Minnis is a vote for the PLP?
It is almost amusing the solicitous interest some of the PLP big-wigs have taken to encourage FNM supporters to hang on to their current leader — Dr Hubert Minnis. PLP chairman Bradley Roberts has expressed concern for Dr Minnis’ political welfare while Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe complains that Dr Minnis has never been able to show his leadership skills because he has been too busy “fighting a game of survival” within his own party. What Mr Wilchcombe fails to understand is that a person who has no skills to hold a team together is no leader. Dr Minnis has been given three years to grow into a nation’s leader, instead he has succeeded in creating factions within factions in his own party, many of them warring against him.
Even Tall Pines MP Leslie Miller (PLP) – who was visible at Dr Minnis’ rally last night – claimed that Dr Minnis is the FNM’s most “formidable” option to challenge Prime Minister Perry Christie in a general election. We believe that our friend “Pot Cake” was just exhibiting his wicked sense of humour. In the words of William Shakespeare, we think the Pot Cake “doth protest too much”.
We keep hearing about how Dr Minnis has gathered all his friends around him to take the government back to the people. What these “friends” don’t seem to recognise is that this country is so near to the brink of disaster that the last remedy needed is a Friendly Society to replace Prime Minister Christie. This is time for Bahamians, experienced in government, in finance, in business — in statesmanship to rescue what we have lost. We need experienced people with global contacts to woo the investor back to these shores. We need trained young men and women to start to take their places to prepare themselves to move this country forward. It is nice for Dr Minnis to gather his friends about him, but that is not what the Bahamas needs — it needs men and women of know-how and experience.
The PLP know that they need a weak opposition to have any hope of another term in government. They are anxious that Dr Minnis be that Opposition leader — they are pretending concern now because they know that his weakness as a leader is their only saving key to power.
Wake up FNM! Stop being so stupid. Friendship has to be thrown to the four winds. At stake is our country and future of our people — we now need experienced leaders with the know-how to build our country.
With Dr Minnis, although a friendly man, he is not the leader to defeat the PLP government. We suggest that you all go back to the drawing board and come up with more mature and practical thoughts.
Comments
lkalikl 7 years, 9 months ago
F$%^ James Smith! F$%^ Perry Christie! F$%^ Minnis! F$%^ the PLP Lite! F$%^ all these loser motherf$%^ing PLPs who are destroying this country with their reckless and irresponsible approach to government and finance. F$%^ the motherf$%^ing PLP for betraying the Bahamian people. We need a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the entire corrupt history of the motherf$%^ing PLP and all the crooked and corrupt PLPs MPs, cronies and family members who have stolen millions from our Treasury over the years for their own private gain. F$%^ the motherf$%^ing PLP! F$%^ them all and all the motherf$%^ers who keep voting in these corrupt, lying, thieving, cheating, stealing pieces of s$%^! Bahamians better f$%^ing come to reality soon because this country is going to the f$%^ing dogs because of the motherf$%^ing PLP!
EasternGate 7 years, 9 months ago
Yup! The PLP is nothing more the feces
ohdrap4 7 years, 9 months ago
i once was fired for voicing opposition to management's plans. well i , i found another job amd quit before i was fired.
the said company is closed and their assets fore closed. i have been steadly employed since.
there are still bad managers around, naturally, since incompetents routinely get promoted in the bahamas, but now i keep quiet. i have seen severl managements come and go.
Reality_Check 7 years, 9 months ago
James Smith has been drinking too much Greek wine for far too long.....nothing but a lot of "mush" now in that head of his.
As for Minnis, it is common knowledge the corrupt Christie-led PLP government want nothing more than for the dimwitted incompetent and uncharismatic Minnis to remain leader of the opposition and/or FNM party leader. In fact, the PLP has decided not to run a strong PLP candidate against Minnis in the Killarney constituency for that very reason. The 410 council members of the FNM party (and their family members) are all going to end up with nothing after the next general election if a majority of them are foolish enough to support Minnis during the next FNM convention.
Well_mudda_take_sic 7 years, 9 months ago
Unfortunately "Reality_Check" you are very wrong about all 410 council members of the FNM party ending up with nothing after the next general election. Christie wants to run against Minnis so badly that he has authorized Big Bad Brad to cut as many deals as possible with those council members who may not be die hard supporters of Minnis in an effort to ensure they support him remaining as opposition leader and/or FNM party leader. As unbelievable as it sounds, Christie is now firmly of the view that the PLP cannot win the next general election unless Minnis remains opposition leader and/or FNM party leader going into the next general election. Christie is in fact now so fearful of Minnis being replaced that he is seriously contemplating calling a snap election!
Economist 7 years, 9 months ago
Makes sense.
Well_mudda_take_sic 7 years, 9 months ago
All of those who pushed for rather than against government's introduction of VAT should hang their heads in shame when reading this one paragraph in a recent article written by Richard Coulson and published in The Tribune:
"The rating agencies will not be blind that VAT was originally sold to the Bahamian public as a direct application against debt increase, only to learn that that the proceeds are swallowed into the Consolidated Fund, where, since dollars are fungible, they simply pay for whatever increased expenses the politicians approve. In their talks with the private sector, the analysts will not find many citizens claiming VAT has improved public services, reduced public inefficiencies or lowered import duties to reduce his food bill - quite the contrary, as every lower-income shopper finds the necessities of life have become a struggle to economise, or do without."
The idiots like John Rolle, Gowan Bowe and others who made the government's case for introducing VAT turned a blind eye to the simple fact that giving a spendthrift corrupt incompetent government more money to spend would naturally induce more government spending and enable more government borrowing. It's common sense that just like you don't give an alcoholic more alcohol to drink, you don't give a corrupt irresponsible government that can't control spending more money to spend. Rolle, Bowe and others like them should have been insisting on tangible evidence of reform in the government's wasteful spending habits for at least a year or two before even considering throwing their support behind any system of new taxation. By not insisting on the VAT revenue being appropriately ring-fenced or earmarked only for paying down the level of our national debt, our country's finances are now in an even worse position than they were before the introduction of VAT. Thank you John Rolle, Gowan Bowe and others like you for helping our government royally shaft all honest hardworking Bahamian taxpayers!! And to think John Rolle went on to become Governor of The Central Bank; a definite quid pro quo from a corrupt government for his efforts in securing more tax dollars for our government to wastefully spend or allow to be squandered by egregious instances of outright fraud!!!
Well_mudda_take_sic 7 years, 9 months ago
We can't borrow ourselves out of junk bond status as our dumb corrupt government would like to think can be done. By introducing VAT, all our government has done is dig a much deeper hole in which the international lending and rating agencies will bury our country. Just look at what happened to Venezuela after successive corrupt governments (the most corrupt one having been led by Chavez, now deceased) decided to borrow willy-nilly against proven oil reserves and then nationalize the assets of the major U.S. oil companies located in Venezuela. The U.S. government and the international lending and rating agencies controlled by the U.S. government eventually came down on the people of Venezuela like a ton of bricks to make them pay dearly for foolishly electing and supporting tyrannical dictators who borrowed like crazy from the rich developed nations to give to the down trodden non-productive poor Venezuelan people (alla Robin Hood) until the U.S. government decided the hole the Venezuelan government had dug for Venezuelans was deep enough to bury Venezuela and teach Venezuelans an important lesson. Most Venezuelans today are without food, potable water, soap, tooth-paste and, yes, toilette paper. The few Bahamians who support Fweddy Boy Mitchell and Grease Dependent James Smith poking Uncle Sam in the eye (and Perry "Vomit" Christie's cozy relationship with the corrupt mainland Chinese elements he has foolishly allowed into our country) had better wake up to the harsh reality that lies ahead for us when the sleeping giant dragon to the north of us has had enough and decides to breath fire on us like it has done on the disrespectful and ungrateful Venezuelans.
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