The Tribune

IN THIS column yesterday, we discussed how election promises are being modified, diluted and even given a new interpretation.

The promise that interested us was the impossible doubling of the education budget. All during the election campaign PLP speakers -- Prime Minister Christie included -- insisted that the education budget would be doubled.

Mr Ingraham, still prime minister, said it was impossible, pointing out that if that were done the Education budget in four years would more than total the national annual budget, which was just under $2 billion. In other words, the $290 million annual education budget, Mr Christie had promised to double to $580 million.

Mr Ingraham pointed out that that kind of annual expenditure was not possible. "You can't borrow that kind of money and you can't make it," he said.

Mr Christie thought otherwise. Whatever the odds, he declared, "the PLP is the only the only one saying not only can we do this, but we must do it." And so must do it they will, but how?

Dr Michael Darville, Minister for Grand Bahama, and a few others speaking about education have given us a clue of how government apparently plans to double this budget. Dr Darville - despite the statements of his colleagues, including his prime minister -- now says that they never meant that they would double the budget. They just meant doubling the investment -- and that's where you, Mr Businessman, comes in.

"The first thing, upon being named the Minister for Grand Bahama," said Dr Darville, "I moved swiftly to meet the industrial partners because we realise that in order for us to accomplish this, we must partner with you." So now it's a partnership with private enterprise. Dr Darville was smart enough to realise that what he needed was not coming from the Education Budget.

We have no problem with this as long as it is a fair partnership with no strings attached.

We believe that any business that is looking to the future expects to encourage and build on local talent. However, one thing that this government must accept -- which we believe the former government came to understand -- is that we are a small country with not enough talented Bahamians to keep up with the growth. There are Bahamians in this country who can meet international standards, but the sad fact is that there are not enough of them. Government has to make up its mind whether it is prepared to stifle the country's growth until the country produces the required -- up to standard -- work force, or whether it is prepared to allow Bahamians and qualified foreigners to work side by side as the country keeps moving ahead and qualified Bahamians continue to come on stream.

The world economy is in a precarious position today, which if it continues to sink into depression will further reduce any hope of the Bahamas seeing a healthy business growth in the near future. This is no time for persons like Labour Minister Shane Gibson to make threatening noises about an unreasonable crack down on work permits. Especially those who recall what such threats meant under the PLP of a past era. In those days, it meant that if you did not toe the party line a business lost all rights to exist -- this included the denial of all work permits. It was not a question of proving the need of such a permit. If you were not in total agreement with the PLP government, you got nothing.

What with the escalation in crime, the threat to the banks, the talk of cancelling Cable and Wireless' contract, and the state of the country's debt, we do not need the heavy hand of Shane Gibson with work permit threats to help turn investors' present wait-and-see attitude into one of walking away without even taking a second look back.

We recall what happened to The Tribune in the Pindling era when we decided to increase our training of young journalists. We hired a highly qualified British journalist, turned one section of our building into a classroom, and recruited young people who aspired to be journalists. They went to class daily, learned short-hand, computers, writing skills, were lectured on defamation by the late Eugene Dupuch, QC, went to parliamentary sessions, learned to cover the courts, and the many other things that young reporters do. On Saturdays they did their field work in The Tribune newsroom working as reporters. They then produced their own tabloid once a week. They were given a small stipend on the understanding that The Tribune would hire the three best in the class at the end of the year and the others would be trained to go elsewhere. The students did well. However, at the end of the year when the instructor's work permit went to Immigration for renewal it was turned down -- the PLP did not approve of The Tribune's politics. A school that had so much promise and in a year was getting such good results closed, never to open again.

A short time later, a young lady came to us begging to be taken on staff. During the interview, she was naive enough to admit that she really did not want to make a career with The Tribune. Broadcasting was her dream. However, she had been told by some government big-wig that she could not get a job at the Broadcasting Corporation unless she had been trained by The Tribune. Of course, she was not taken on staff -- our formal training had ended.

If government wants co-operation, there has to be respect on both sides -- bullying and threatening will get them nowhere. It will only destroy a once healthy, confident attitude that has been built up in the business community over recent years.