The Tribune

DID good news ever sound so disappointing?

Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis gave a national address yesterday to announce what had already been announced, and to undercut what Health Minister Renward Wells had promised.

Of course, it was more than that, but we had already been told on Friday that 20,000 very welcome doses of vaccine would be arriving from India yester- day... only for that date to slip back to Wednesday this week. Dr Minnis was only reiterating what had already been released with that information.

Then he turned to the topic of the vac- cines that Mr Wells had said would be with us last week, only to tell us they will be here by the end of the month... and only some of them. About a third of the promised 100,800 doses from the World Health Organisation and Pan American Health Organisation will be with us by then. The other two thirds? By the end of May. Mr Wells seems to have missed his guess by a lot.

Mr Wells was even saying that jabs would have already started by now – while Dr Minnis is now only promising that the vaccinations will start within days of the arrival of the rst 20,000 doses.

The spacing out of deliveries also might put an end to Mr Wells’ sugges- tion that the government would use all 100,000 doses at once, to give 100,000 people their rst of two vaccinations.

Dr Minnis yesterday spoke of the worldwide demand for vaccine and the dif culty of ensuring supply. Without a sure timeline for the second jab, it seems unlikely we will use all the rst jabs at once. Better, surely, to give everyone who takes a vaccine the right dosage rather than jab and hope.

There were other aspects of the speech that were useful, clarifying how elements of the rollout will take place.

The rst people to be vaccinated will be healthcare workers, residents and staff of care homes for the elderly, and non-ambulatory residents registered in the health system.

There will be a booking system, although details of that have yet to be announced. We can expect to hear more on that in the coming days – and we’d better, with the vaccine arriving on Wednesday.

All the same, if parts of the jigsaw puzzle are still being put in place – what on Earth was the shape of our plan when Mr Wells was busily telling us the vaccine was about to arrive?

Dr Minnis sounds more sure of his facts than his minister, and more deter- mined to encourage people to take the jab when it becomes available. Still, in a pandemic, it’s not a great look for a health minister if we have to check his facts with his boss.

From expecting 100,000 jabs

imminently,nowwehavea fthofthat from a different source than we were expecting.That’sawelcomebonustohave 20,000more–butthedelayinreceiving the vaccines we were told were about to arrivetakestheshineoffoursilverlining.

This should be a good day for the gov- ernment. But if you promise more than you deliver, you can’t be surprised when people are skeptical.

Economic promises

Speaking of promises, the PLP has unveiled a whole bunch of them.

Their economic plan says they’ll decrease VAT... for a year. Then they’ll reassess that. They will also increase the minimum wage to $250 per week in the private sector, signi cantly expand social assistance and cut the cost of energy by just under a third.

Bold claims – although we’re not sure how they will pay for them with the country already facing a soaring de - cit and income from traditional sources such as tourism still at rock bottom.

There was also some confusion over whether VAT exemptions would be removed from breadbasket items – which we would imagine won’t be removed when the PLP realises how badly that will affect its would-be voters.

As for the energy plan, it aims to have 30 percent renewables on the grid by 2030. If the see-saw of parties in power goes on the way it has for the past few election cycles, that will put that prom- ise’s delivery squarely in the hands of whichever government would succeed any possible PLP administration.

Where will the money come from for much of this? Well, deputy leader Chester Cooper thinks with lower VAT people will spend more money and the government will make more out of it overall. Smaller tax, greater income.

Aside from that, there are promises about cutting waste – honestly, is there a more general promise made on the elec- tion trail by any party than cutting waste – and economic mismanagement.

Through all these measures, the PLP believes it can reap revenue “upwards of $250m”. If it’s planning on spending more on social assistance, that won’t go very far.

Now part of this might be the PLP promising a castle when the country can hardly afford the bricks, but honestly no party has a magic wand to x the eco- nomic problems brought upon us by the pandemic.

The rst step of any recovery is get- ting past the problems caused by this virus. After that, whoever is in charge will have a major task to rebuild the economy we had before COVID-19. We can get there – but it won’t be easy. No quick VAT cut is going to x things in a hurry.