By AVA TURNQUEST
Tribune Staff Reporter
aturnquest@tribunemedia.net
THE nation took the first step on the road to creating a National Economic Development Plan yesterday.
The formation of a medium to long-term economic agenda will break the cultural “antithesis to planning”, according to Prime Minister Perry Christie, who said that growth and development have been side-stepped by mass tourism and a political agenda.
Mr Christie explained that a national plan will integrate the public as stakeholders, and ultimately deepen democracy as the country looks to move away from the long-standing political platform of “macho politician”.
He said: “What has taken (planning) place is the
macho politician, that in contra-distinction to the methodical planning, the need to have an integrated and coordinated approach to the running of a government.
Mr Christie added: “The macho politician, those who could make decisions, those who represent themselves to be super decisive, they impose upon this country a great sin. When visiting consultants come in and look at our country they hide their amusement sometimes to see the extent to which we have allowed our country to develop without fundamental provisions for accounting of what we do.”
Hosted by the IDB, the planning conference gathered a cross-section of governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations and civil society for a workshop on critical success factors of an NEDP.
The discussions will guide the next round of assessment and consultations, IDB Country representative Astrid Wynter said.
Ms Wynter said: “The whole process of national development planning has to be a series of consultations, community based meetings, things with young people, different events to appeal to different roles of society.
“This is where some of the initial ideas about how the process would work will be fleshed out. Before you begin this process you have to have an assessment,” she said, “so this is where we get some buy-in on what the next step will be.
She added: “Otherwise it’s not really a national plan, it’s just one more thing that some group of people have decided to sell to other people and that’s not what it’s about.”
Participants engaged in panel discussions identifying development challenges; and sessions targeting key issues such as private sector partnership; Family Island development; youth involvement; and diversification.
Providing a case study on the development of a development plan for the Cayman Islands, Maria Zingapan, director, Economic and Statistics Office, stressed the importance of ensuring the plan was sufficiently budgeted.
She also added that a constitutional plan, similar to that of the Philippines, could not be deterred by political parties.
Yesterday, Ms Wynter said: “I do feel a sense that this is responding to a perceived need to get beyond what’s been business as usual, which my party is in, or my group is in, we will stop and review everything, maybe cancel, maybe start again, so it means as a people you’re constantly º as the Prime Minister said – you’re hostage to the political processes, as opposed to the people saying this is our agenda as a nation and whichever government or party comes in to power there’s a mandate that’s bigger than any party.”
She said: “We’re looking at serious challenges, and if it’s circumscribed by a term in office that means there’s not enough time to do anything that is more medium and long term in effect, and so we’re talking about the education system, you’re talking about a generation to see changes. You have to wait to see your children grow up before you can say yes there has been a qualitative change, that’s what I think people are energetic about, because it goes beyond political considerations, it goes to nationhood.”
Comments
TalRussell 11 years, 1 month ago
Hail Mary, full of grace. Finally I do have some common ground with my dearest Comrade red shirts who be reading all about PM Christie's fancy National Plan To Help Country's Economy. We heads start go'in all dizzy, right after read'in the PM thing about; "The formation of a medium to long-term economic agenda will break the cultural “antithesis to planning.” Comrades I had to stop read'in, cause right about now I can't afford no extensive head therapy. Really PM, is this "antithesis" thing what you and your cabinet colleagues have been talk'in about in the cabinet room for now goi'in on two years back in power? Really, PM are you tell'in Bahamalander's that this the best economic growth plan you and your cabinet colleagues could come up with, after now approaching the mid stretch of your second year of regaining power? You even got Hubert running to the library up in Cooper's Town, to look up what in the hell is the mean'in of that "antithesis?"
ThisIsOurs 11 years, 1 month ago
Ahah! My coworker and I were having fun trying not to bite our tongues. I don't know why he just doesn't speak plainly...he can't be an effective communicator if he talks above everybody
proudloudandfnm 11 years, 1 month ago
My God! A ton of words but nothing said. When is Perry going to wake up? We are tired of his round robin speeches and excuses. This man is pathetic. Bout say bully politicians! This is just plain old moronic.
ThisIsOurs 11 years, 1 month ago
Aahhh, Mr Prime Minister, I congratulate you on this bold step. This is music to my ears and hopefully many other people's ears. YESS get rid of the macho politician who hires and fires for no justification whatever, who orders action because he wants it that way. Get a full team from the opposition, not only sitting members, get bipartisan input from business not just business partners and friends. and eventually feedback from the public. YES YES YES. This country is doomed if we change strategic direction every five years. There have to be 20, 30, 40, 50 year initiatives that everybody buys into and everybody works towards.
Please also make it mandatory for every sitting politician and political candidate to show some proficiency in planning, know how to plan and how to execute a plan
Involve Mr Gowen Bowe and Mr Rupert Pinder! I've seen them several times on You and Your Money and them seem quite practical and lucid
ThisIsOurs 11 years, 1 month ago
And please hire the best people to implement the plan, irrespective of nationality or political affiliation. You need the best people or a really good team to get a plan executed successfully. Good attitudes.
JohnDoe 11 years, 1 month ago
Maybe that national plan should start by putting VAT back on the shelf until the "assessments" have been completed. You can't make this stuff up. A year and a half into your term, you have not executed a single plank from your election wish lists and now a national plan. PC I like you as a person, but it appears as if your political expertise does not extend beyond knowing how to get elected. Therefore, excuse me if I am not impressed or hopeful. This is merely an attempt to divert attention from the negative fallout of the government's poor handling of the VAT issue.
banker 11 years, 1 month ago
@JohnDoe Concur with your observations.
ohdrap4 11 years, 1 month ago
Amen!!!!
banker 11 years, 1 month ago
An economic plan is obvious to people who understand economics. Unfortunately the Prime Minister is not one of them. For all Bahamians to enjoy the widest available economic opportunities that this global village has to offer, here is what needs to happen:
1) No more mega-projects. It just erodes our sovereignty and traps our population into low level service jobs.
2) Dollarize the economy. Adopt the US dollar as the official currency of the Bahamas. That will get rid of the Central Bank bullsh*t of reserves, approvals for currency transfers and it will eliminate the huge barrier that Bahamians have with a non-hard currency. With the dollarization of the economy, the first visible effect will be a jump in the GDP as Bahamians take advantage of international transactions without jumping through hoops. It will also revitalize the moribund Financial Services industry and we can send Ryan Pinder back to Florida.
3) Diversify the economy. Tourism as it is practised in the Bahamas is dead and we don't have the money to revamp the infrastructure for this industry, nor do we have the current know-how of modern tourism.
4) Tackle the crime issue. You don't do this by getting the firemen to patrol the streets. You start with the white collar crime at the top, first in the HOA and then on down. Once people are working and happy, the crime problem will fix itself.
5) Government sponsored free abortions. I don't need to expound further on this.
6) Separation of church and state.
7) Creation of socio-economic institutions that provide regularity and order to the commercial aspects of society -- ie ombudsman, credit bureau, civilian oversight of police, a real stock exchange instead of the Mickey Mouse outfit now, etc etc
8) Revamping the tax code to eliminate the unfair tariff system and introduce an income tax. Bahamians will yell and screech, but they do not realise that they are taxed far higher than jurisdictions with income tax.
Any other plan is doomed to failure. And I predict failure because Perry Christie is a failure as a leader, as a moral guide and as an ethical person. He is vacuous, loquacious and powerless to stop the ethically challenged band of PLP brigands that pull his puppet strings.
spoitier 11 years, 1 month ago
I like your list, but I would say that the government needs to sponser secondary education. Start the student loan program back up, but have it exclusively to COB or any school in the country, I understand that the government don't want people taking the loans and staying in the country where they recieve their education in order to default in there loan, however, a more educated society is a better one.
TalRussell 11 years, 1 month ago
The hardest yet smartest thing that any Bahamaland government of the day can do, is to get the hell out of the daily lives of the people. Stop spending money on consultants on how to discover solutions for what the government thinks the people need. Government is much too complex to offer solutions to anyone. Let the people solve their own problems. Bahamalnders were more enterprising when there was less government interference. How much social assistance did the government give to Milo B. Butler? In fact the UBP, with a little help from Sir Sidney Oakes. did their damn best to crush Comrade Milo. The people want you to take your consultants armed with all their data and shove it up where the sun don't ever shine.
banker 11 years, 1 month ago
I agree about the consultant's thing, but that is because these people are elected to the HOA and they haven't a clue. So they hire a consultant. It's not like you can go to school to learn to run a country. Look at what we have. The PM is a lawyer. The deputy PM is a lawyer. The Minister of Financial Services is an American lawyer. Shame Gibson was a beverage manager and a Radio Shack clerk. Brave is a lawyer. Nottage is a gynecologist and if you believe Christie when he opposed Christie after Ping left, he is an abortionist as well. What do these guys know about economics, or leadership, or government. It is all on the job training. So they hire consultants. However, the consultants tell them what to do, and it sounds like work, or it is political suicide to implement what the consultants tell them to, so they hire another batch.
The trouble is that they are clueless. And Bahamians go into the business battle unarmed. The have a non-convertible currency. They have exchange controls, and they do not have access to capital like everyone does. They are really behind the eight ball.
The things that are required to fix the Bahamas are not very popular with the voters, and those that espouse real plans to fix the Bahamas, could never get elected. Many have tried their own formula, from the Vanguard, to BDF to Nottage's old party to Fweddie's defunct party to Raisin Bran and his DNA, and none have succeeded.
banker 11 years, 1 month ago
Dinner from the Double Dragon - $12.95. Forgetting a container on the counter there -- riceless!
TalRussell 11 years, 1 month ago
Comrade K4C you're being so descriptive of some we sitt'in house MP's. For who else can wake up every morning (or whenever they wake up) with a paycheck guaranteed by taxpayers. Thousands of Bahamalanders, red and gold shirts, are still go'in without steady paychecks, so a chicken in they's pots remains but a faded dream. Forget dreaming of washing they chicken down with a nice cold Kalik or some soothing dark rum. The only thing that is guaranteed to change is the names of the MP's that the public treasury people writes on them weekly checks issued to MP's, Cabinet Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Government owned corporation Chairman's, Committee Chairman s, etc, etc. Don't forget the FREE taxpayers funded buffets them be feasting on whenever the House is in session. You think they does serves Kalik or rum with they buffets? I don't begrudge the MP's getting paychecks but shouldn't they at least first make sure the people have food before they ask the taxpayers to spring for lavish buffets, served to them up in the peoples House of Assembly? For the sake of Jesus, should the people be expected to feed them? Comrades this is not a red or gold shirts buffets, all them MP's is taking money out taxpayers pockets to feed them. Please PM order no more FREE House buffets.
SP 11 years, 1 month ago
Mr. Christie is well on the right track with this one.
Why didn't P.M. Christie and IDB Wynter just say Hubert Ingraham was obviously nuts?
The tuneless "one man band" proved beyond doubt what damage a wacko all powerful Prime Minister is capable of.
Thank God the majority of the electorate had enough sense to recognize and get rid of an out of control P.M.
I often wondered how our politicians could sit at the table at international conclaves with world leaders and hold their heads up after practicing so much stupidity.
The country is badly in need and way over due for a short, medium and long term economic development plan. While were at it let's also deal with limiting the powers of the Prime Minister, transparency, and freedom of information which will also automatically put a reign on well known decades old crippling effects of systemic corruption across the board.
Getting rid of the Bahamian Dollar wouldn't be a bad thing. Panama which is over 1000 miles away from the U.S. as an example is doing extremely well with their use of the U.S. dollar as hard currency.
The PLP and FNM led us to the poor state where we are today. Surly we would be a hell of a lot better off by following the Singapore model.
Let's get on with it!
JohnDoe 11 years, 1 month ago
@SP, are you serious? The EU countries are now caught up in a vicious cycle of slow or negative growth, sovereign debt issues and extremely high unemployment and in the USA the President and Congress have been gridlocked for the past six years with the mighty USA credit rating being downgraded. Where are the world leaders that should make us hold our heads down in shame. Comparatively, given the 2008 crisis, the infrastructural development that has happened in the Bahamas over the past several years would put all of these leaders in these developed nations to shame. PC is a former PM, spent 5 years in opposition, has put forth two budgets to the Bahamian people during his current term as PM and is about to make the most imortant fiscal policy decision in the history of the Bahamas and only now is he calling for a "National Plan". If there is anyone who should be holding their heads down in shame it is us Bahamians who continue to elect these politicians from both sides. This national plan idea is kinda silly. By the way what is the National Plan for the USA, do they have one. The PLP gave us their National Plan before the last election and they were elected based on it. However, PC is sort of now confirming that they never intended to execute that plan.
concernedcitizen 11 years, 1 month ago
thank God we gave the airport away to the Canadians or it would still be a filthy hell hole w/ Bradley Roberts controlled outlets serving slop for food .@Rory you go on about ,the dirty montague ramp ,the hospital ,the politicians etc ..I,ll do you one better we as Bahamians can,t do it and everything we run rapidly slides into a third world abyss ..I have been to the immigration dept 3 times in 3 months and seen the same KFC box in the stairwell corner all summer .AS much as it hurts my pride the more things we privatize and get foriegner firms to the run the better ,Hotels ,BTC,BEC ,Bahamasair if anyone will take it ,,and just turn ZNS off and save the money .Our biggest blessing was Castro taking CUBA and when the U/S embargo ends are slide into ghettos and poverty will increase.
TalRussell 11 years, 1 month ago
If only PM Christie's PR handlers would remind him to use the language of Pindling Moses. Of all PLP's, you'd think he'd have learned from the great orator. But he couldn't have sent Hubert and his Cabinet colleagues a pack'in in 2012, if he hadn't done some'tin Pindling right. Look what it did for giving Hubert three terms in office? Like Pindling, Hubert also went down for the count. Many would say, it was also his own political undoing that got him fired. Even Hubert in 2012 told the people, all about how he Hubert from Cooper's Town, was personally chosen to lead Bahamaland, by Pindling Moses himself.
concernedcitizen 11 years, 1 month ago
Whats so strange is our first leaders in independence were first generation Bahamians of Jamaican and Barbadian lineage .,backed by Jews and Italians out of New york that had lost their gambling interest in Cuba to Castro ..By the time Ping gave the bend or break speech about Grand bahama the Mob was doing so good in Vegas they didn,t need the Bahamas anymore but for offshore banking .
banker 11 years, 1 month ago
It is a lie and revisionism to claim that Ping was born here. He was born in Jamaica. There is no birth certificate.
concernedcitizen 11 years, 1 month ago
I give him the benefit of the doubt ,but then w/ mob backing he wrestled the PLP away from Cartwright ,Taylor ,and Stevenson ,, and banished them to the wilderness .
TalRussell 11 years, 1 month ago
Those who say Pindling and his "mob" wrestled the PLP's party's leadership away from H.M. Taylor, do not not really know much when it comes to Bahamaland's political history. Or, they just make up their own sets of facts to suite their twisting of what really happened, as they blog along.
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