The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

One by one, the lies, mischaracterisations and false narratives that helped (with dollops of foreign money) the FNM to sweep to power, are being exposed, fizzling or simply benefitting from a new and unprecedented policy of Prime Ministerial aloofness.

Suddenly, the once-sinister veiling of the Baha Mar deal has morphed into a not-so-sinister matter involving private litigants and a court order: in other words, just what the PLP said it was!

As for the PLP’s supposed financial profligacy, we now have an FNM that agrees not only to finance the hangover to the tune of a $400m loan, but insists on additional borrowing of $300m to finance its own programmes!

Meanwhile, as Dr Minnis (in stage-managed style, with no questioning media) threatens to expose and punish MPs (for which, read PLP MPs) for financial nondisclosure, the fact that, as Minister of Health, he earned in excess of his ministerial salary on a lease to that same ministry seems utterly un-noteworthy to anyone except Rodney Moncur.

The lame retort that this interest was “declared” is the equivalent of a schoolteacher with child-molesting proclivities being given the pass because he “declared” them. The answer is not to declare, but to resign.

In fact, he should not have been appointed - presumably there were other ministries that were not his tenants.

Nor, when the FNM threatens corrupt officials with jail, does anyone in the media note that it was just last year proved in a court of law that the Ingraham government in which the current PM served presided over a $600,000 bribe, which resulted in the spending of $80m on defective BEC generators that have resulted in more than a decade of Third-World style blackouts in New Providence. Even that conviction did not lead to jail.

Armed with a political license to distort, the FNM apparently made an effective opposition. But do they have a constructive plan for this country? After “stop, review and cancel”, what next? It is beginning to feel like Bahamians, who in so many ways inhabit a half-built country, have just elected an amateur demolition crew with no construction experience to finish the job. Meanwhile, Dr. Minnis has hidden himself into the role of a distant figurehead, with little responsibility to either truth or detail.

We now have a Prime Minister who seems to have confused his role with that of a ceremonial head of state, spending his weekdays touring government institutions and hosting schoolchildren’s field trips to his office. This confusion seems to explain his absurd proposal to attach term limits to an office that, in other Westminster jurisdictions, is recognised as nothing more than a pragmatic reflection of the composition of Parliament, which can be fluid (as recent events in Britain showed) and does not benefit from legislative fixtures.

It may also explain his hasty appointment of a Press Secretary, who quickly announced that he will be subjecting himself to media questions exactly four times annually. While this arrangement may suit Minnis’ apparent weakness on detail, it is a curious development in light of the FNM’s obsessive claims of transparency and being …“da people’s time” government.

In due course, Bahamians will come to see just how badly they were misled by a combination of a corrupted media, foreign financial interests and simple lies.

It is beginning already among more thoughtful observers of events. The aggressive (and quickly vacated) investigation of Dion Smith’s supposed “corruption” at BAIC; the decision to drop the appeal against Save the Bays’ assault on parliamentary privilege; and the daily, empty theatrics of FNM MPs behind a veil of that same privilege, will eventually broaden that realisation even among less thoughtful observers.

Meanwhile, the PLP (the only alternative to this hopeless and dangerous crew) must remain confident and committed in defending its reputation on every single point, so as not to permit a false narrative to become “fact” in the absence of challenge. It must challenge FNM MPs to repeat the lies they tell before cameras in parliament out in the street and face the consequences.

It must also take every opportunity that presents itself (and they will be many) to expose Minnis’ FNM for what it is: a reckless, vindictive and opportunistic outfit that has no real plans for the improvement of The Bahamas, only a lust for power, for which it will sell itself (and the country with it) to the highest bidder.

ANDREW ALLEN

Nassau,

June 17, 2017.