The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Recent articles in The Tribune have left me wondering about what the next 50 years has in store for The Bahamas.

And, I must say, “It doesn’t look good for most Bahamians.”

The recent news about the cost increases of BPL electrical rates are alarming. And, so is the news of the many people dying globally, due specifically to the stifling and deadly heat.

From a Christian perspective, shouldn’t air conditioning now be considered a human right? Instead of a prohibitive luxury as it has been seen in the past? These rate hikes are an inexcusable and onerous death sentence for some of our more health compromised people. BPL has now placed upon the most vulnerable of our people in a serious life or death predicament.

The papers and politicians talk about these BPL rate increases, as if they, like the majority of Bahamians, struggle and worry about paying their bills, putting food on the table, buying school books for their children, and whether or not they can afford the outrageous BPL bills. Most Bahamians do struggle, if I am to believe the news.

The newspaper editors can’t feel it. The hefty politicians don’t feel it. But, most Bahamians do.

We claim to be a Christian nation with Christian values.

The business owners speak of increased costs and struggling to make their businesses work. But, how often does their family go without?

The Bahamas, like many places in the world, is seeing an increasing disparity between the haves and the have nots. The rich are getting richer, the poor poorer. I find this unacceptable. Many of the rich say it is because the poor make bad choices in life. Rather than the reality that The Bahamas, like most places now, is riddled with rotten politics, corruption, deception, theft, nepotism and a predatory, vampire-like banking and financial system that favours the few connected, and leaves the most vulnerable, people and nations alike, in overwhelming onerous debt.

For 50 years now, The Bahamas has had a choice. Our leaders and business people could have built a nation favorable and fair to all Bahamians. But, we did not choose this route. We chose the way of money-loving greed. I hear politicians call it “self survival”. For themselves, of course.

This is where we are now. We have people, such as the Minister of Finance’s financial secretary talking about more loans to keep The Bahamas afloat. As if, they are not shackling the legs of our children into financial slavery. How do these people sleep at night? Honestly.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when their salary depends upon their not understanding it” -Upton Sinclair. I am sure that the well-educated, well-meaning financial secretary would be loath to open up about the true state of Bahamian finances. And, in my opinion, I don’t think he would be likely to give up his healthy salary for having to tell the truth.

A reasonably educated person, upon picking up the nation’s newspapers on any given morning, would readily admit that it appears The Bahamas is bankrupt.

We are deeply in debt as a nation. We continue to borrow money like a drunken sailor. Our infrastructure is worn down and ill-maintained. Most state owned enterprises here would probably be declared “bankrupt” by any competent accountant or “financial expert”, as they are called.

Our Water & Sewerage Corporation water delivery system, the life blood of humanity, is poorly managed and hanging on by a thread. Failing by many accounts. Most certainly failing on many of our Family Islands. Water & Sewerage has added a huge tax to the Family Islands. If we want continuous water, and if we want to invite tourists to come here, many who can afford it are putting in wells, water storage units, pumps and other equipment to keep the water flowing. This, since our government cannot find people reliable enough to manage and maintain this life-essential resource. How many Family Islanders can afford the few thousand dollars for this safety net, to do what W&S has failed to do? BPL is a complete and utter failure. Decades of mismanagement, political interference, theft and sabotage have rendered all people poorer in this country and made operating a business even more challenging than it already is. Any argument here?

In my opinion the Bank of the Bahamas has contributed greatly to the lack of development in our country, by pandering to politically connected individuals who never intended, it seems, to ever pay back the large loans they took out. Nor should we forget to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars of our money that has gone missing. Missing! Our country pays dearly for the past poor management of BOB. BOB money could have been used to help Bahamians develop their country. Instead, in my opinion this financial institution has been a cash cow for a select few, while helping to impoverish our country as a whole.

Our health care system is an affront to human decency, prompting our highest politicians to flee abroad to get adequate health care. An embarrassment to say the least. Who can argue with this point?

The central government of The Bahamas has helped create a work force that has little education, extremely poor work habits, and attitudes to match. The concept of Customer Service is a horrible joke on our people. Our government has enabled this situation to affect and degrade productivity to noncompetitive levels on a scale almost unbelievable. Not only that, each and every Bahamian directly pays for those who occupy government jobs in sub-standard fashion.

BTC is letting our country down. When you advertise something, collect payment, yet refuse to deliver the said service, that is called fraud. We are talking about The Bahamas going digital and entering into this new world order. Yet, we can’t even deliver decent phone service or reliable internet for our businesses and people. Everyone from BOB to BTC is saying there is a glitch in the system. As if, the glitch isn’t greed and poor management. In my opinion the managers of BTC would have been fired a long time ago in any competent organization. BTC was our cash cow, yet for a “deal”, it was sold and the cost cutting began. Our BTC service is crap. Crap.

URCA has been a failure in protecting Bahamians. Shut it down.

We have heard how NIB is doing. The four rate hikes necessary to keep NIB afloat is because, why?

Do we know where NIB money has gone all these years? No. Because we have no law that says the Bahamian people deserve to know anything our politicians do. No right whatsoever. Therefore, almost zero accountability from anyone in The Bahamas. Certainly, no politician is required to respond to anyone or to answer to anyone, once they are elected to office. Anyone else see this?

Road Traffic lost how many millions? Is this just due to poor management? A valid question that nobody seems obligated, or interested, in answering. We don’t even have the right to know.

It appears to most outsiders I speak with, as well as Bahamians, that the Bahamian justice system is a joke. Whether the OBAN scandal, the Baha Mar sad story, FTX, repeat murders on our streets, there somehow appears to be a lack of seriousness and integrity at every level of our country. And, in my opinion the justice system is no different.

These issues above do not take into consideration the near term effects of climate change, which will have great economic, social and infrastructure implications. We have yet to have a national conversation of how we will tackle these issues. A politician cannot speak to these issues, other than to run around the world talking big. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but it is what it is. Few are as ill-suited as our PM to be talking about climate change. Our politicians simply don’t get it.

The Bahamas is one of the most at risk countries as sea levels rise. And sea level rise is accelerating. Nor, it seems, is there much discussion, or planning for hurricanes of increased intensity and frequency, as the experts predict.

Also, not talked about much is the very real possibility of collapsing marine ecosystems. Especially our coral reefs, our crawfish, conch, bonefish and on and on due specifically to the unprecedentedly high sea surface temperatures. Then what?

My objective here is not just to cast stones. My objective is to look at where we are as a country, and be honest about what is required of us if we want it to get better.

Nobody should be proud to be Bahamian. We can be happy, thankful, feel blessed that we are Bahamian. But pride should be reserved for things we have accomplished. We can be proud of raising good children. Stephen Gardiner can be proud he is the fastest 400 metre runner in the world. These are things to be proud of. Most of us had no choice about where we were born. Therefore, there should be no reason to be proud of something we had nothing to do with.

A friend of mine talks about how we need new leadership globally, but especially here in The Bahamas.

I concur, believing that we have precious few politicians here with the requisite qualities to lead others. My belief is that we have failed to cultivate politicians, pastors, and others who claim to be leaders.

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Had we succeeded in effectively nurturing, educating, and training “leaders”, we would be in a totally different, and decidedly better situation than we now occupy as a nation and as a people.

I do not know where we will find decent, competent and qualified leaders to take the urgent situation The Bahamas now finds itself in, and turn it around. I can honestly say, simply from reading the daily papers, that we presently lack the leadership to see this nation through the perilous times ahead. Neither the FNM nor the PLP have anything to offer the Bahamian people. Our current pool of leadership in The Bahamas borders on worthless.

I agree with my friend. We do need new leadership. But, where o’ where will these leaders come from?

PORCUPINE

Nassau,

July 20, 2023.