The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

MONTAGU MP Richard Lightbourn suggested the government should “refrain from making promises they can’t keep” pointing to the lack of employment growth in the country in recent months.

“They are telling the public that thousands of jobs are on the way, that is a far cry from the truth,” Mr Lightbourn told The Tribune.

He indicated that the 1.4 per cent increase in the unemployment rate will only continue to grow because the government remains “detached from reality”.

“If your principal message to the country is on reducing unemployment, at some point you have to deliver on those promises,” he said.

“It is a government’s responsibility to create jobs for the country it leads. If that primary responsibility is failed, then that government becomes a failure.”

“Recently the government admitted that unemployment was on the rise, but suggested that persons were now more encouraged in their search for work. It is alarming because they are using a statistic that doesn’t relate to anything,” added Mr Lightbourn.

“If those persons that fall into that group wanted to tell the truth, they would tell you that being encouraged doesn’t pay the bills. The government is supposed to develop an economy that allows persons to find work, not get excited for the opportunity to do so.”

In January, the Department of Statistics announced that the rate of unemployment in the Bahamas had risen to 15.7 per cent in November 2014 representing an increase of 1.4 per cent from 14.3 per cent in May.

Last week, Prime Minister Perry Christie said it would be “incorrect” for anyone to interpret the latest unemployment statistics as suggesting that net jobs have been lost in the Bahamian economy.

He said the reality is that the rise in the country’s unemployment rate resulted from an expansion of the labour force that simply outstripped the growth in jobs.

Mr Christie said: “In fact, the detailed labour force data from the Department of Statistics reveals that total employment in the Bahamas actually increased modestly between May and November of last year.

“The reality is that the rise in the unemployment rate resulted from an expansion of the labour force that simply outstripped the growth in jobs. As I stated earlier, achieving much stronger jobs growth is one of my government’s key policy priorities.”

He told parliamentarians that the growth in the labour force was buoyed by a decrease in the number of discouraged workers in the country.

“In other words, persons who had dropped out of the work force have now been sufficiently encouraged by employment prospects that they have re-entered the labour force in search of jobs.

“I am convinced they won’t have to wait long either. Thousands of new jobs, as I said, are going to be created this year alone,” Mr Christie said.

His comments came during his 2014/2015 mid-year budget presentation.

However, Mr Lightbourn refuted the prime minister’s argument.

Mr Lightbourn said: “People being happy to look for work doesn’t mean that the economy is healthy and working, it simply means that people need work. So for the government to point to that as economic hope, they are very detached from reality.”

He added: “This is nonsense, you are failing miserably.”

“You can’t as a government boast and brag about the creation of the limited number of jobs when you know that a huge number of persons ,are still seeking employment around this period.

“Instead of spending time talking about each small step, focus on creating the jobs you promised and the jobs that are needed now. You would have thought that by now that this government would have learned to stop making promises they couldn’t deliver on.”