The Tribune

URBAN RENEWAL, the PLP’s solution to most of the country’s ills, has many Bahamians confused as to what it really is. According to the PLP it was their brainchild launched in Prime Minister Christie’s Farm Road constituency in June 2002 after the PLP had become the government.

In fact before that — under the name of community policing — it was launched from the Elizabeth Estates Police Station as the Eastern Division Pacesetters. The Pacesetters were so successful with their door-to-door community policing in the Eastern Division that it won the first international police award for the Bahamas. The presentation was made by the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police in 2001 for community policing – not Urban Renewal as later claimed by the PLP. At the time Paul Farquharson was Police Commissioner, and Frank Watson, National Security Minister in the Ingraham administration (1992-1997). The initiative was introduced by ASP Shannondor Evans in 1998 while in Freeport and brought to New Providence when he was transferred to take charge of the Eastern Division at the Elizabeth Estates Police Station.

When the Christie administration took over, the community policing component was meshed into what became known as Urban Renewal in Prime Minister Christie’s Farm Road constituency. From there the programme was expanded to about seven other New Providence constituencies with another four in Grand Bahama. The greatest argument with the PLP-style Urban Renewal programme was that police officers were taken off the beat and transferred to the schoolyard. Throughout the Christie administration police, given the task of baby-sitting the schools, became the chief disagreement with the programme. Therefore, when the Ingraham government was returned in 2007 this was the first change made to Urban Renewal. The police were told to report back to the Commissioner of Police for reassignment.

The PLP had varying twists on this move. At first they said the programme had been closed by the FNM. On another occasion it had been watered down. Whatever had been done, then Commissioner of Police Reginald Ferguson, in answer to a statement made by PLP chairman Bradley Roberts, said that contrary to the Opposition’s claim he had seen “no empirical evidence” to show that the changes in the programme had caused a surge in crime. He added that the claim that “Urban Renewal is dead” as often asserted by the FNM government’s detractors, is “a lie.”

The PLP were so persistent that the Ingraham government had killed Urban Renewal that we were surprised when they were again the government, 80 Urban Renewal staff in Nassau and Freeport were claiming victimisation because they had been fired from the programme. How could people be fired from a programme that the PLP for the past five years has claimed had been closed down by the FNM? It all appeared strange. However, these 80 trained officers say they are being victimised because they are perceived to be supporters of the FNM. In fact, among them are officers, who were originally hired by the PLP— they have served in the programme for about nine years. Others have put in five years under the FNM. All Bahamians well trained in their jobs.

In a letter to The Tribune Mr Dion Foulkes of the FNM reminded Mr Christie of his own words in which he had said: “Victimisation is an evil I put on par with corruption in high places.” Mr Foulkes pointed out that those rejected by the Urban Renewal programme were “all Bahamians, mostly mothers and grandmothers who head their families and are totally dependent on their income from Urban Renewal for the survival of their families.”

We are told that in each of the 16 Urban Renewal Centres (nine in New Providence, seven in Grand Bahama) four police officers – police inspector, sergeant, corporal and constable — have been stationed. This would be about 64 officers — not including another large number for the schools. These have all been removed from the daily crime beat. In the meantime 80 trained Urban Renewal workers have been sent home from a programme which – if the PLP in opposition are to be believed – had already been closed down.

The FNM, now in opposition, say that instead of closing Urban Renewal during their administration, they had expanded the programmes and removed the police’s daily presence from the schoolyard.

We have now learned that when the FNM was returned to government in 2007 they found Urban Renewal Centres abandoned and doors locked. Computers and instruments for the marching band had disappeared. Many of the staff did not report for work. As a result the FNM closed the centres for a short time to reorganise. When the programme reopened the number of centres in New Providence had been expanded to nine, and in Grand Bahama to seven.

Among programmes added were parenting classes for young mothers, entrepreneurial programmes to help young persons get into business, sewing programmes for both mothers and fathers so that they could sew their children’s school uniforms.

“There will be no pay back time under my administration,” Mr Christie told a crowd on Clifford Park on April 4, 2002. “I am a democrat not a tyrant. I will be too busy helping people to have any time for hurting people. And it’s just not in my nature to do it anyway. And when I speak about this, I speak on behalf of the entire Government I will lead.”

If Mr Christie expects Bahamians to believe what he said on that occasion, then we would suggest that he give this unfair treatment of these 80 fellow Bahamians his personal and immediate attention.