The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Perhaps it will not be too far-fetched to suggest that the ongoing BTC and Cable and Wireless Communications (CWC) debate will once again be reinvigorated among the aristocratic class and the media after it was published in The Nassau Guardian that former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham sought to regain the majority of shares in BTC his government sold to CWC.

This subject has dominated the press and has been discussed ad nauseam ever since Prime Minister Perry Christie announced that his government had reached an agreement with the principles of CWC to transfer two per cent of BTC to a trust fund for the sole benefit of the Bahamian people.

It has now been heralded by some politicos that 51 per cent of BTC is now owned by the Bahamian people, and not by a foreign entity. I think many ordinary Bahamians who are at their wits’ end financially are growing weary of hearing politicians express this old worn-out sentimental yarn about them owning BTC. Truth be told, they don’t. They have no financial stake or vested interest in that telecommunications company. So I’m asking our beloved politicians and the media to please desist from spinning this fantastic tale. Ordinary Bahamians are not in the least amused by it.

Furthermore, ordinary Bahamians who are struggling to make ends meet desperately want to see the conclusion of this debate as there are myriad of issues The Bahamas continues to face, not least of which being the mortgage crisis. How is the ongoing BTC and CWC debate germane to a family I personally know who have been recently given an eviction notice to vacate their home? Due to the crippling economy, the breadwinner of the said family has been unable to find stable employment and now his family is in grave danger of going homeless. Unfortunately, their story isn’t an isolated one.

Currently, there are approximately 1,000 home-owners who are in arrears. Every other week, there’s a brochure in the dailies with an extensive list of distressed and foreclosed properties and homes. I thank God that State Minister of Finance Michael Halkitis has announced that his administration will give it another go at attempting to assist struggling home-owners after their initial mortgage relief programme had flopped.

The government should give this initiative as well as other pertinent matters such as the double-digit unemployment rate and the growing crime crisis its undivided attention. Ordinary Bahamians who are part and parcel of the lower economic strata of this great commonwealth are mainly concerned with bread and butter issues. I personally know another family who have been living without electricity for the past 12 months due to their inability to pay the light bill. And in another sobering and gut wrenching true story, a grandmother told me recently that her teenage granddaughter gave birth to a baby girl last year, but neither she nor the young mother are in a financial position to support the child. She told me that on one occasion the baby had neither milk nor diapers. Now you tell me, do you think these people were shouting ‘‘hooray’’ after the recent BTC pronouncement by Christie?

Bahamians such as the above are simply fed up with the politicians, the media and elite members of the academia beating their gums on who should or should not own the majority of BTC.

Put bluntly, they don’t care. They have other pressing, urgent issues which need to be addressed. It is high time that our indifferent leaders come down from their ivory towers and deal with them.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport, Grand Bahama

January 29, 2014.