The Tribune

By Malcolm Strachan

THE major takeaway following last week’s Budget communication by Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis is that we are continuing to traffic in hope and prayer. Long-term relief seems to be dependent on a tourism rebound hinged to vaccinations of tens of thousands of Bahamians.

While Bahamians are still largely sceptical about taking the vaccine, the greater challenge is the current lack of supply – a hurdle the government is still working through with pharmaceutical manufacturers and other countries.

In the meantime, the age-old practice of borrowing is alive and well as the government is gearing up to borrow $871,645,371 for the next fiscal year and an additional $68m to cover our bills and keep the economy afloat to the end of June. Now, facing a whopping $10bn in the nation’s debt column, many would say the dual catastrophes of Hurricane Dorian and COVID-19 have left us with few alternatives. Certainly, it would be hard to disagree.

However, the severity of such a conundrum must always be a consideration of successive governments. We are navigating through a natural disaster and a deadly virus at the same time – but we must also seek to future-proof ourselves. Saying it more simplistically, we are looking at a two-headed boogeyman – one that can bring tourism-dependent economies to their knees. The extent of the shock to our economy has become an extremely frightening reality.

If we’re just considering the economic losses suffered from both catastrophic events, what’s been indicated in the government’s spending plans for the next fiscal year is a clear attempt to buoy the economy until tourism can fully rebound.

Hurricane Dorian’s losses of up to $3.4 billion and government direct spending to respond to COVID-19 amounting to $290m hardly captures the country’s aggregate losses when we factor in unemployment and the nosedive in economic activity. The 15 percent shrinkage in our economy in 2020 – a year where global tourism shut down - speaks volumes to how important it is for visitors to return to the country.

The philosophy underpinning the 2021/2022 Budget is clearly indicative of a desire to create jobs – or as the Prime Minister coined it, a “people-centered” approach, in that it would be focused “on maintaining and supporting families, small businesses and communities and growing our economy”.

But what happens when – not if – there is another Dorian or COVID-19?

How does the intention to further bloat the public service – a practice which the IMF has already warned against – benefit us rather than becoming a burden when individuals who are, in most cases, low skilled and hired as a voting incentive are now depending on the government to serve as a buffer in hard times?

Is this money well spent?

Many more questions loom as the government faces a great deal of criticism for what many are referring to as an election Budget.

Certainly, the Minnis administration did not see itself facing the enormous difficulties it has encountered after supplanting the Progressive Liberal Party four years ago. Life was easy when the Bahamian people only wanted to see the backs of the previous government walking out the door.

But governance is not just about replacing the administration that went before you. It requires innovation and unconventional thinking at times – something COVID-19 has been producing the world over.

The Budget failed to do that as we are, yet again, hoping and praying for the best-case scenarios to play out. That said, here we are, on the eve of hurricane season, and more Bahamians becoming infected and dying from COVID-19 than we’ve experienced at any point during our battle with the virus.

Either the players or the playbook needs to change.

At one point, politics was a young man’s game. When Sir Lynden Pindling led the Progressive Liberal Party to Majority Rule, he was 37 years old and in his prime. Twenty-five years later, when Hubert Ingraham became the nation’s second Prime Minister, he accomplished this feat at the age of 45. Former Prime Minister Perry Christie was 59 when he assumed leadership, while in 2017, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis became the oldest leader ever elected in our country since Majority Rule at the age of 63.

And with his only realistic threat being Philip Brave Davis, now aged 69, an election loss to the PLP will only continue a trend.

British author and historian David Cannadine asked a poignant question when considering how some political eras favour either younger or older political leaders – “which is better?”

As what used to be the political ideologies of young men have now evolved into the outdated thinking and practices of old men, a country in dire need of innovative thinking and problem solving can only pray for the best as we continue to weather the storm. And we do this in hopes that hurricane season does not present us with an actual one – an incomprehensible prospect.

The time will come when we must ask ourselves the same question – “which is better?”