The Tribune

Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis is nothing if not ambitious.

In today’s Tribune, he talks of his plans for his remaining seven years in office. Voters, of course, might have their own say on that matter - and not since the 1990s has any party had more than one consecutive term in office.

But let’s peer through this looking glass into an FNM-led future, what would a stable government bring?

The first goal Dr Minnis mentions is closing the gap of inequality – “to allow more of the poor and the indigent to share in the wealth”.

He says he wants to create more job opportunities for the poor, and also wants to “uplift the inner city”.

Certainly the inner city has been part of Dr Minnis’ focus since being elected – between tax-free areas being set up and the creation of economic empowerment zones.

These have met with mixed success – earlier this year The Tribune reported on the slow uptake of concessions for the Over-the-Hill zone, but Dr Minnis responded that “it’s amazing that the inner city was neglected for 50 years and you want resolution in one. That’s impossible”.

The programme also includes goals such as creating a food market for native products, eliminating outside toilet use by 2025, creating an auto-mechanic cluster to eliminate roadside mechanics in residential areas, building a community centre offering care for children and so on.

These are the goals that, presumably, a successful prime minister would be looking back on at the end of his two terms.

It’s good to have such resolutions – and New Year is always a good time to reiterate such resolutions, although we might say such goals are rather hazy.

Let’s put some definite figures on those goals – what unemployment rate are we aiming for? What exactly does uplift mean for people living in the inner city? Improving education results? Increasing wages?

And how is the wealth to be shared out? What will stop a greater share of wealth being gobbled up by the already wealthy and how will he ensure the poor see their share grow? After all, the poor will have been hit hardest by the increase in VAT. Toss the new BPL charge onto people’s shoulders too and the climb isn’t looking any easier yet.

These things are easy to say but harder to do – and leaving goals hazy means the slightest increase can be claimed as a victory. A two-term government, one would hope, would be looking for more than slight margins.

And while few expect success in one year, people are going to need to feel the start of the benefits before the next election if Dr Minnis is to have a hope of carrying through his plans and not seeing his government replaced.

So we applaud a goal of closing the gap between rich and poor, while noting the challenge facing any government of trying to reach such goals while flipping between parties from one election to the other.

If only we could be more non-partisan in some of the goals we aim for as a nation. The Vision2040 document was one such effort to create a road map for the future of The Bahamas, but that was jettisoned by the Minnis government once it took office.

Instead, we have Minnis’ Vision 2027 – which might or might not last beyond 2022.

Imagine if we could agree on goals for beyond each of those years, goals that all sides found worthy and aimed towards. Goals to tackle poverty, climate change, job creation and more.

After all, why settle for a vision for the next seven years when you can aim for the next 20?