The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Please publish my commentary on a recent Nassau Guardian editorial:

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “governance” as “the action or manner of governing a state”. Expanding on this definition by reference to modern norms, “good governance” generally infers transparency, responsibility and accountability on the part of a government.

Naturally, in making the preposterous claim that the present government has made “steady progress in governance”, your Editorial of the 12th April did not refer to one single instance of an improvement in actual governance since May 2017. Because it couldn’t.

Instead you referenced a succession of economic achievements, beginning with the improved tourism numbers that everyone (except presumably yourselves) understands to be directly related to the opening of the Baha Mar resort (by the PLP), which the present Minister of Tourism once trashed constantly and the present Prime Minister threatened to close and resell to a “real buyer”.

You proceeded through a list of promised investments, including the one proposed for the Grand Lucayan, which is only at the stage of a letter of Intent. Naturally you didn’t take note of the dodgy recent history of Letters of Intent in The Bahamas, most notably the one executed by a sitting minister of the present government under the most controversial of circumstances – and which the Prime Minister (having once grilled the PLP over it) has never felt compelled to explain.

On several, glaring levels, the present government has brought new lows in governance to the Bahamian post-independence experience. Contrary to your suggestion, it is not just PLPs who can see that.

Few instances of perceived government misconduct have outraged Bahamians across the political spectrum as much as the televised heads of agreements with Oban Energies, which involved forged signatures, deeply troubling, one-sided clauses and (still) missing files. A promised police report is still not forthcoming, while persistent journalists have gotten a tongue-lashing from an irate Prime Minister.

More recently, we have had two ministers roundly criticised by a magistrate for their conduct in the trial of a political opponent and a post office lease being halted, then hurriedly given to a cabinet minister in the interest of speed (only to be slowed down again). This last matter was publicly opposed by three government MPs on the basis of a glaring conflict of interests.

If this government has succeeded in achieving anything relative to governance, it is having inured Bahamians to new levels of hypocrisy and arrogance, such as supporters of the FNM can even fix their mouths to make claims of the kind contained in your Editorial.

ANDREW ALLEN

Nassau,

April 12, 2019.