The Tribune

By KIRKLAND TURNER

AS WE approach the first anniversary of the election of the PLP to Government a majority of Bahamians have concluded that the PLP-led Government is incompetent and directionless.

As incidents of crime, most especially violent crimes against persons continue to surge – the murder count today stands at 35 for calendar 2013 – and while at least two Cabinet Ministers have been licensed to carry arms for personal protection, we are asked to believe that crime is down.

In office the PLP has failed to introduce a single job creation initiative. And, by its own admission has failed to help a single family save their home from mortgage default.

It often appears that the only good news coming out of this Government is the occasional report of travel around our country by either the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister as they seek out photo ops at the sites of developments left in train by the last FNM Government. The exercise began with the historic first meeting of the Cabinet of The Bahamas Government in the new Government Administration building in Abaco during the heat of the North Abaco by-election campaign. The exercise continued with visits to the new hospital in Exuma – and subsequently that under construction in Abaco and announcing as if for the first time, the planned construction of a community hospital in Eleuthera, the new airport terminal in Marsh Harbour, the new hospital expansion at the Princess Margaret Hospital, the new international terminal at LPIA, the new Gateway project connecting the LPIA to the New Providence Road Improvement network, the Baha Mar Resort development, the new resort at The Cove in Eleuthera (visited by the prime minister on two occasions in recent weeks), and the relaunch of projects at Coco da Mama and the French Leave on Eleuthera, the new airport terminal for New Bight, Cat Island and the rebranding and reopening of the former Holiday Inn Property at Our Lucaya in Grand Bahama.

This PLP Government has not even pretended to be moving toward the introduction of their much promised national health insurance programme. And, rather than doubling investment in education as promised during the election campaign, the Christie-led PLP Government has cut all Government budgets, including education.

In the lead up to general elections, the PLP led trade unionists to believe that they, the PLP, were the better friend to labour and that as government they would likely give in to demands for pay increases and for an end to shift work schedules for customs and immigration officers. In office they moved the goal posts. Suddenly, high electricity bills are the result of unreasonable trade unionists demanding exorbitant overtime pay and refusing to abide by the terms of their employment requiring them to work on shifts; demands that the PLP Government now advise they will not meet. Most Bahamians agree with this position though they cannot help but shake their heads at still another PLP flip-flop.

The Minister of State in the Ministry of National Security accused our closest neighbour and largest trading partner of repatriating Bahamian criminal deportees from the United States without prior notice to Bahamian authorities; an accusation denied by the US Embassy. Since airlines do not accept passengers without travel documents we have to believe that all those Bahamian criminal deportees hold Bahamian travel documents issued by the Bahamian Government – or is the Minister suggesting that these deportees are being clandestinely smuggled into our country? Discussion of this matter cannot be helped by the fact that neither The Bahamas nor the United States of America have accredited Ambassadors resident in each other’s capitals.

The Bahamas’ Ambassador-Designate to the United States was dispatched to Washington but only to present credentials at the OAS since the Government is still waiting to receive the American Government’s agreement for the Ambassador’s appointment to Washington. This is not the first time that The Bahamas has appointed an Ambassador to Washington. Are we to believe that the Government simply refused to follow the proper procedure for the appointment of an Ambassador? It is unconscionable that Prime Minister Christie publicly announced his intention to name the Director of Prisons as the next Bahamian Ambassador to Washington before even raising the nomination with the American Government – an elementary step in the appointments of Ambassadors anywhere in the world.

What is also of concern is the fact that a Consul General has not been appointed to head the Bahamas Consulates General in either Miami or Atlanta notwithstanding that these are the two busiest consular jurisdictions for The Bahamas. Most Bahamians living or studying in the US live within the jurisdictions of the Consulates in Miami, Atlanta and New York. And, wider Bahamian business interests – tourism and trade in goods – are overwhelmingly based in the Florida, Georgia, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut areas. Illogically, the Christie Government raced to appoint a Consul General in Washington, D.C. They even named a press attach� in that Embassy though no one understands what constructive work might be occupying either of their time.

The Christie Government did name an Ambassador to Switzerland who will also represent The Bahamas at the WTO and at the UN Agencies based in that country. That career officer was recalled from her post heading The Bahamas’ busiest Consulate General in Miami to receive her commission as Ambassador but up to last week she continued to sit in Nassau. Was she appointed to an unbudgeted post? Could it be that the extravagant rental accommodation for the High Commissioner in London has eaten up the money earmarked for the new Embassy in Switzerland?

And then, inexplicably given the growing level of business, cultural and educational relations between The Bahamas and China, the Christie-led Government has yet to identify a new Ambassador to Beijing. Thankfully that Embassy’s experienced career civil servant Deputy can capably look after Bahamian interests in the interim.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is responsible for immigration, appears also to have made a mess of his other responsibilities. It began when he created a kerfuffle announcing that the Government would stop issuing work permits for maids and gardeners next year and generally make it more difficult for businesses to engage foreign workers. The prime minister and his minister of state almost immediately suggested that the new immigration policy was not a firm one but almost as quickly Mr. Mitchell dismissed concerns coming from the business community insisting that he would not apologize for keeping a PLP election promise to put Bahamians first.

Mr. Mitchell similarly dismissed an appeal from a foreign government interested in ensuring orderly labour conditions for its nationals legally engaged in our country. Then he would have us believe that he did not orchestrate a plan for uniformed immigration officers to detain a foreign sea lion trainer engaged at the Atlantis Resort. Since the same type incident also took place involving engineers engaged at Baha Mar it is difficult to believe that neither initiative was authorized by someone in authority. Ministers of Government must stop hiding behind hapless public officers who simply carry out instructions from their superiors.

I believe that Mr. Mitchell jumped on to the anti-immigration band wagon hoping to distract his Party’s xenophobic support base into believing that the PLP Government is acting to protect jobs for Bahamians. The Minister appears to be unaware that his same xenophobic supporters don’t want those maid and gardening jobs. In any event as Minister Mitchell and his colleague at the Ministry of Labour try to convince Bahamians that they are safeguarding jobs for Bahamians they may also advise us of the number of out of work Bahamian sea lion trainers registered with the Department of Labour. And, they might also advise us of the number of foreign engineers, quantity surveyors, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and financial service and legal specialists engaged by The Bahamas Government because the Government has been unable to identify and engage suitably qualified and experienced Bahamians to fill the vacancies in the public sector!

Most Bahamians now accept that the PLP had no plan to govern when it came to office in May 2012. Bahamian now believe that the PLP conducted an aggressive election campaign financed with easy money from groups with special vested interests who believed that by supporting the election of the PLP they were buying influence in a future Government.

Now a chorus of complaints is being heard especially from those disappointed PLP supporters and financiers as the Christie-led Government stumbles from one failure to the next. The list of PLP stumbles and miss-steps is long: the failed numbers referendum, the appointment of re-engaged pensioners to senior positions in the police force and customs, the flip-flop on oil exploration, the reluctance to act to protect our marine or land environment, unfulfilled promises made to trade unionists, the botched appointment of senior diplomats overseas, the introduction of clumsy legislation to extend casino gambling beyond the physical confines of casinos licensed to operate in mega Resorts like Atlantis and Baha Mar. In short, the PLP Government is demonstrating that its words, promises and commitments amount to nothing and worse, its capacity to provide good governance is low and declining.

What raises the greatest concern is the feeling that no one is in charge. No one knows what is supposed to be happening or when it should or will happen. Journalists now expect that any question put to the prime minister will be responded to by an admission that he is unaware of whatever the question refers to.

At the New Year’s Junkanoo parade the prime minister claimed not to know that his minister of national security was scheduled to deliver a nationally televised address to the nation on crime.

And, the minister of finance (aka the prime minister) claimed that he was not aware that he cut the education ministry’s budget. Indeed, he would have us believe that neither he as minister of finance nor the chairman of the College of The Bahamas (former minister of education and attorney general in the first Christie Government) was aware that certain other fees had already been increased at the College to compensate for the budgetary cuts.

Both the prime minister and the minister of national security claim that they do not discuss security matters with the commissioner of police. Neither for example, was he aware of security concerns that caused the police to block COB students from entering the Public Gallery in House of Assembly.

Media reports indicate that the Minister of Education apologized to the students last week. I suggest that the prime minister, who claimed to be unaware of the plan to block the students’ access, should now also find his way to apologizing to the students.

And, apart from the minister of foreign affairs and the minister of labour no one in the government knows exactly what our work permit policy is or will be at any given time.

While this orchestrated confusion reigns in our country cabinet ministers and heads of statutory bodies are busy travelling around the world at public expense.

The Chairman of the College of The Bahamas was “out of town” and hence not at the Board meeting which authorized an increase in certain fees payable by COB students. The Minister of Education was “out of the country” and so not present when the police barred COB students from entering the House of Assembly. The Attorney General was out of Town when her office issued a nolle in relation to a firearm and ammunition possession charge against a former client of the attorney general when in private practice.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs who has found it necessary to travel to South Africa, London, the Middle East, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Miami in the USA over the last several months advised the media from Haiti, that he was not aware of immigration raids being conducted by his department. Well he should be!

Mr. Mitchell’s itinerary of foreign travel is reportedly now being rivaled by that of the Minister for Financial Services, Ryan Pinder who has found every possible reason to visit a long list of foreign capitals around Europe, North, South and Central America in his quest to convince himself and presumably others that the absence of any responsibility for financial services in his misnamed Ministry does not make him a completely irrelevant member of the Government.

It is a sad, sad truth that we are approaching our 40th anniversary of independence led by the most ineffective government in modern times, a Government seemingly consumed with advancing the personal financial interests of its leadership at all costs, a Government with no understanding that Government’s primary purpose is to serve and provide service so as to make life better for its citizens.