The Tribune

IT HAS always been said that when America sneezes, the Bahamas catches a cold.

On September 15, 2008, the investment banking firm of Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. Wall Street panicked. The world panicked. The greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression of 1930 started to gather momentum.

Lehman failed because over confidence and greed had tempted it to dabble in risky real estate. The long and short of it was that it could no longer finance its investments because it had over borrowed.

There was such an incestuous relationship between international banks that when one fell, the others started to tumble. Money for development dried up, investments on drawing boards collapsed. The world’s economy was in crisis.

Of course, in the Bahamas, the nation caught more than a cold — it was hit with a bad case of pneumonia.

The Ingraham government had been in power for 16 months when the crisis struck. During that period, we often heard Bahamians remark — be they FNMs or committed PLPs — that they were thankful that a decisive Hubert Ingraham was prime minister at that critical time to ride the storm.

Not only was welfare for those out of work stepped up, but the Ingraham government decided to invest in the nation’s infrastructure — among it expansive road construction that transformed the western end of the island from the airport into town so that New Providence would be a fine show place for the day that tourism would return to its former vigour. Large sums were spent on infrastructure to keep Bahamians employed. No one has to ask where the money went. Like the inscription in St Paul’s Cathedral to its famous architect Christopher Wren: “Reader, if you seek his monument – look around you”. Bahamians today only have to look around them as they drive the tourist route into town to know where their money went.

Whether the PLP did not fully grasp the cause of the world crisis, and how it was affecting all nations, including the Bahamas, or whether they chose to ignore the signs and play politics, is anyone’s guess. The fact is they blamed it all on the “shortsighted” Ingraham government — “he made it worse”, they chortled. Planned investments collapsed because investors could no longer get bank loans. Whichever government would have been in power, this was just the facts of life. And as investments collapsed, unemployment grew.

If the Bahamian people had fully understood the world picture and what it meant to them and their island, they would not have fallen for the false promises that followed.

For example, no less a person than today’s Deputy Prime Minister promised that if the Christie government were returned as the government on May 7, 2012, they would create 10,000 jobs in their first year. Bahamians have only themselves to blame for falling for what they should have known in the climate of that time, was impossible. But they too were desperate and fell for Mr Davis‘ sleight of hand. It is not known how in good conscience he could have made this promise knowing that investment was failing — and it’s only with investment that jobs are created. It is probably true that when a politician wants to win, he is devoid of all conscience.

As the PLP enter their third year as the government, they have yet to deliver on this promise. Nor have they been able to deliver on any of their other promises. At present, every segment of the population is against them. The unions, usually the darlings of the PLP, have warned of a two to three-day strike – total work stoppage, they promise. The prison staff are up in arms because of unhygienic conditions at the prison. The illegal webshop crisis is still illegal, VAT is in limbo, the unfair deprivation of women’s equal rights, and, of course, crime is out of control — despite what National Security Minister Dr Nottage says. Crime is now a crisis that is unprecedented for the Bahamas. We no longer look to the police’s crime figures. However, what we do know is that never in our journalistic career have our reporters covered so much crime as they have in this past year. As Mr Davis spoke at police headquarters on Monday, reporters were alerted to a murder on Cowpen Road.

And yet Prime Minister Christie still looks to the future with hope. Yesterday, although declining to grade his government, he said he was “satisfied” with its achievements and his ministers’ performance to date. Unfortunately, a large number of Bahamians, are not. Too many of his ministers are blissfully out of step. Even his deputy prime minister — the promiser of the 10,000 jobs — is aware of the discontent.

“Anyone visiting New Providence,” he told his listeners Monday, “cannot help but come away with the impression that there is an incipient sense of anger, rage, intolerance and impatience in our midst.

“It is evident everywhere. We see it in our homes and sadly there is an overspill of these tendencies in our community.

“We are an angry society and we need to calm our most vicious tendencies to lash out at everything and everyone,” said Mr Davis.

It is true. Bahamians were given false hope that died aborning. It is understandable that they are angry — everything is uncertain, everything is in flux, everyone is anxious, from the businessman, who has pulled back on future plans, to the out of work labourer who doesn’t know where the next dollar is coming from. The politicians promised jobs, but there are no jobs. The people’s anger, although worrying to society, is understandable. They feel they have been taken advantage of.

Instead of fairly facing the problem, Deputy Prime Minister Davis wants to shift the blame to the press.

“This type of behaviour,” said Mr Davis, “has not been made easier by the fact that we have a media and other forms of social communications which seem to take delight in flaming this fire of discontent.”

Mr Davis must remember that he and his colleagues make the news, the media’s job is to report it — not to soften or ignore it. The media is doing its job. Mr Davis probably does not remember the words of the late Sir Etienne Dupuch who always warned politicians that when they dig a grave for their opponents they should make certain that they dig one for themselves.

This was the very advice that Mr Davis should have remembered in May 2007 when he supervised the erection of the large billboards along the tourist routes of New Providence highlighting the murder rate under the former FNM government. When they were ordered down by the FNM government, Mr Davis complained:

“I do not know why they would take down the signs with the murder count on them. That’s a fact. The fact is there were more than 400 murders in the country. We cannot run away from that. We cannot hide the truth and we cannot suppress the facts, we have to address the issue of crime.”

And so, Mr Davis, that is all the legitimate news media is doing – reporting the facts. The Tribune is not fanning this dangerous discontent, nor does it take delight in reporting it. What Mr Davis must remember is that all of us at The Tribune are a part of this community and we suffer with it. But we have a job to do — and come hell or high water— all of us intend to do that job.