The Tribune

ON TUESDAY Prime Minister Perry Christie agreed to meet with the Customs and Immigration union to hear the salary complaints of its workers.

Although the prime minister will meet, listen and consider how he can ease their financial pain, he warned against industrial action. He also urged the union to take the country’s fiscal realities into consideration.

“I can tell you what our books are,” he said, “and we’ve just been downgraded, that must mean something to people, and if I have to translate that and have the Ministry of Finance translate that for them. I will.”

Last Friday Moody’s Investors Service did another thumbs down on the Bahamas. From a credit rating of AA3, later falling from “stable to negative,” the Bahamas now has a score card of Baa1.

Although Minister of State for Finance Michael Halkitis described the rating as “not unexpected”, he had some consolation in knowing that Baa1 meant that the Bahamas still qualified for an investment grade.

However, businessman Dionision D’Aguilar was not so optimistic.

“I’m not surprised, and I predict that we will be downgraded again in the next 18-24 months because no one is getting real about this problem. The Government, in this five-year term, has to correct this astronomical deficit,” he said.

The problem, said Mr D’Aguilar, is that Mr Christie is “scared to tell the people that they cannot afford to live the way that they are living and that we have a few choices.”

We agree. We also agree with Mr Christie’s warning to unionists that now is not the time to rock the boat — they have to remember that the country is in deep financial trouble.

However, in our opinion, Mr Christie’s greatest problem is within his own government. Before he asks the people to understand, he has to convince his own team that their reckless spending will have to stop and the people’s money handled with more care. Some of his own Cabinet ministers seem oblivious to the fact that they are helping to sink the ship.

For example, at National Insurance, Mr Christie failed when he refused to send NIB Board chairman Gregory Moss on administrative leave until the forensic audit now in progress is completed. What is currently taking place is that those being investigated are still sitting around the table acting as their own judge and jury. No matter how conscientious the auditors might be, their audit will never satisfy most Bahamians. Never again will Bahamians be convinced that their investments are safe until an independent Commission of Inquiry is appointed to investigate. If only half of the serious allegations contained in the Cargill affidavits filed in the Supreme Court are true, then Mr Moss also should be retired until the investigation has been completed.

We know that fiscal prudence is imperative at this time, and that a Commission of Inquiry costs money, but it is more important to appoint a Commission for NIB, using the money that would have been spent on the gambling referendum, which is not only a complete waste of money, but is not required under the Constitution.

It’s no good Prime Minister Christie saying he has no “horse in the race” when it comes to the gambling referendum. It might be true for him, but we even doubt that when just outside the door of the Ministry of Finance we see gambling paraphernalia advertising the “yes” vote. Mr Christie is the Minister of Finance. Why, even Mr Christie’s own party chairman has made it clear that he supports the legalisation of gambling.

The PLP might not have one horse in the race, but from the behaviour of some of them it would seem that they have many horses in the race. So let’s give up the charade. Let the politicians get back to the House, cancel an unnecessary and costly referendum, and do the job that they are paid to do – in other words legislate. They might as well legalise the web shops, put strict controls on them, and heavily tax them to compensate for their past illegality.

Take the money saved and spend it on an independent investigation of NIB.

We understand that the latest news from this government-run operation is that a quiet investigation has been going on among staff to discover party affiliations.

It is also claimed that there is much upset among NIB staff. It is understood that 200 staff members are to have salary increases — not judged on merit, but loyalty to party. Already many names were announced on Friday with the whisper that many more are to follow shortly. The other 300 are to remain in the shadows, although as far as qualifications are concerned they are probably more deserving of promotion.

It would seem that we are again back to the Pindling era when back-scratchers moved to the top of the ladder and the others, regardless of ability, remained at the bottom.

We are fast moving back to the era of mediocrity – no wonder Moody’s and Standard and Poor have lost faith.