The Tribune

By NICOLE BURROWS

While researching video footage for a film project, I came across some clips from the 1970s and 1980s, including old video recordings of Lynden Pindling around the time of Bahamian independence from Britain.

Pindling was asked what he thought about the ‘whites’, ie, expatriates, who packed up and left, some assumed, because The Bahamas became an independent country under a black leader and a predominantly black Cabinet. The question posed to Pindling essentially asked what he thought of the departure of these folks from the country and what he would say to the matter.

Pindling replied: “I think it’s a question of what’s the rightful place of a national in his own country ... the overall objective still is to advance Bahamians to the very top spot in this country.”

And I thought, how utterly ironic.

In nearly half a century, this one thing he said he wanted to do still has not been done. In spite of higher levels of educational attainment, in spite of the entrepreneurial spirit of Bahamians in The Bahamas, they are still second best to anyone from any other country with more money to buy the land and other resources in and of The Bahamas.

I have to wonder how it is Pindling thought he would insulate Bahamians from the impact of what the world already called a “millionaires’ playground”. How would Bahamians ever compete with that, unless they too were to become millionaires? And how would they become millionaires when the basics of their economic, education and health and welfare systems offered them little opportunity for real advancement?

We wanted tourism without “the white man’s” help when it was he who created a tourism industry. We wanted tourism without counting - in fact, never imagining - the costs, the long-term costs, it would have for us ... a cumulative cost far greater than the dollar amount tourists could ever spend overall in the Bahamas.

Why could it not have been the goal of Majority Rule crusaders to encourage Bahamians to be independent thinkers, inventors, creators of their own wealth, instead of encouraging them down a path of sponging off the wealth of others? I dare say there was a serious lack of vision there, one made less obvious to Bahamians by the quick and easy money to be gained.

These video clips of independence, most from Reuters’ archives, but one in particular from NBC’s archives, were of course annotated, so that whenever anyone referred to them in the future they would know what was contained on the reel. One clip from 1987 read “Sir Lynden also came under attack during the campaign for padding out the civil service with friends and supporters and failing to tackle the high unemployment in The Bahamas, believed to be over 20 per cent in a total population of only 250,000.”

It seems we’ve come a long way and no way at all.

I’m sorry, but it’s very difficult for me to see, let alone exult, any good anyone in any political party might have done for this country two, or three or four decades ago, when today all I find myself looking at, along with my people, my Bahamian people - not the millionaires on the playground - is a big pile of mess.

In another video clip, the annotation says “Economic problems lie behind the idyllic facade. The Bahamas depend on tourism for four-fifths of their income; and in the past two years the number of visitors has been cut by world recession. Unemployment is high, and the crime rate is rising.”

This could easily be today’s news.

Is that our country’s destiny? To be, for the most part, a visual gem, a playground for the wealthy and a basin of crime, with Bahamians having little to strive for unless it has something to do with tourism, becoming more idle and criminal with every year that passes? Will the masses, the majority that rule, soon become the majority that collapses under the weight of everyone else’s prosperity?

One reporter back then, on the lead up to independence, asked Pindling “What is your party’s political philosophy?” He said he asked because it didn’t appear that anyone outside The Bahamas knew what it was. Pindling responded, “I would say we’re essentially a party of the masses.” In terms of right, left, and centre, he said the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) was a little left of centre.

The closer you get to the left, the more you supposedly believe in the equality of people, equal rights, equal opportunities, equal incomes, etc. Do you see any of that in today’s PLP? In spite of what they tell themselves, are they really more “right” than “left”? Because the Bahamian society is not reflective of equality across the board, and most certainly not income equality.

Barely ten years into Pindling’s government, he and his administration was already being accused of looking out for “friends and family”. Perhaps that is something so engrained in our culture, our national psyche, that we will never shake it.

Corruption starts when you do things for friends and family because they’re friends and family, when others cannot get the same opportunities. That’s apparently where we were by 1980, and 30 to almost 40 years later, we’re still there. Perhaps it cannot ever change, because that’s simply who we are. We don’t, as a group of people, know another way, and we’re not even trying to find another way. So maybe we will just continue to get what that brings us.

It will take an entirely different way of thinking about people and progress, if we are to be better, which is why I suppose many are adamant that people over the age of 60 cannot remain in power because they simply cannot understand that concept of merit before relationship ... or they’re so connected to their way of doing business they can’t separate themselves from the old practices. But the thing about that is that the younger people have learned very well how to carry through with that same way of thinking. And so the corruptibility still exists, waiting to be utilised at any given moment.

It doesn’t matter who you bring in to ‘fix’ the problem if the key players are still operating in their old habits. Case in point: Bahamas Power and Light (BPL)/Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC), whose new slogan should be ‘Where there’s always a story’.

You could change the name, change the logo, change the management, but you can’t change the way the people who you depend on to get the job done actually get the job done. And you definitely can’t advance the company with capital expenditure on new equipment if the company never turns a profit.

I’m so thrilled to see Arnette Wilson-Ingraham at BPL/BEC as communications manager - such an intelligent and well-spoken woman. But I do not envy her job of placating rightfully rabid Bahamian power consumers. She does her job well, now that they finally let her off the leash, but she can’t change the reality of the problems at BPL/BEC.

What was PowerSecure supposed to do differently than the old BEC, if both they (PowerSecure) and the government knew they couldn’t capitalise new equipment? What was the point of bringing them in, if, in effect, as we’ve seen over the past days, weeks, months, nothing has changed? The only real reason to bring in foreign overseers would be to stem internal corruption and inefficiency, or at least, give the impression that you care enough to stem internal corruption and inefficiency, even if at the end of the day PowerSecure leaves the government holding the bag. And maybe that’s why no one at BPL/BEC bothers to speak out against them.

Minister of Works and Deputy Prime Minister Davis says that BPL management is “meeting the mandate” as agreed. And that “reliability has been improved”. How? By keeping the status quo? Where is he living?

Lemme trow some lowness. He can find a way to afford to have $93,000 worth of jewellery but he can’t find a way for the ministry under his leadership to afford new power equipment. I guess he would say it’s not his job but the job of the Minister of Finance. Guess who that is. Along with his lackey, poor Halkitis, who has to pretend as though he has all the answers.

Along with strategic planning, a very big part of management is problem solving. If PowerSecure can’t solve the problems before them, why are they there? If BPL/BEC is so cash-strapped with no light at the end of the tunnel, why are they still operating? They might as well sell candles and matches.

It’s certainly not a new problem, and not a revelation to anyone, but “aged engines” does not sound like the only problem at BPL/BEC. Last week the problem was underground cabling. After extensive and extended outages over the past weekend, who knows what the problem will be called after now? I imagine the next scapegoat will be on deck by the time the morning news is out.

To the average thinking person, all electrical facility infrastructure sounds like the problem. In other words, the problem at BPL/BEC does not lie only with generation but with transmission and distribution.

Remind me, what was BPL’s/PowerSecure’s proposal to improve generation, transmission and distribution? Oh, that’s right. That’s all supposed to be in the $900,000 business plan we have yet to - and probably never will - see.

Guess the next thing we’ll hear is that the Chinese overlords are paying for all new power equipment. I’m surprised they asked for a hotel instead of a utility company. Oh wait. There’s still time.

Send comments and responses to nburrows@tribunemedia.net