The Tribune

IT WOULD seem that the PLP election strategy is to focus its attacks on FNM leader Dr Hubert Minnis instead of dealing with the issues– at least that appears to be the tactic of PLP chairman Bradley Roberts. However, this election must decide the future of this country, which involves settling important principles of government, not finger-pointing and childish nit-picking.

Even Buddha, way back before Christ, seemed to have a sense of humour.

When a simpleton abused him, Buddha listened in silence. When the man had finished, Buddha asked him: “Son, if a man declined to accept a present made to him, to whom would it belong?” The man answered: “To him who offered it.”

“My son,” said Buddha, “I decline to accept your abuse, and request you to keep it for yourself.”

And this is what Mr Roberts will now have to do in falsely accusing Dr Minnis of “condoning” what he “termed were unwarranted and unlawful industrial actions taken by some Air Traffic Controllers that left Bahamians stranded in airports, led to the cancellation of flights and the loss of revenue and other economic opportunities for Bahamians.”

Dr Minnis condoned nothing. However, he did criticise the Christie government for not paying the controllers whatever they might have been owed on time to avoid the unfortunate situation that inconvenienced so many people – both Bahamian and foreign— and internationally undermined this country’s reputation. Dr Minnis said that an FNM government would have handled matters differently.

“I am advised,” said Mr Roberts, “that some of the outstanding issues and subsequent demands predate the current administration and requires an audit to compile the requisite data on which the Government can act. This government has always acted in good faith in addressing labour issues; this administration did so in resolving long-standing financial issues with the public school teachers, Customs, Immigration and we will do the same with the Air Traffic Controllers.”

And so, Mr Roberts, what has your government done about the air traffic controllers’ problem in the past five years? You say an audit was needed to confirm the controllers‘ claims. Has your government even authorised the audit, if not why not? On May 7, 2012, the controllers’ complaints ceased to be an FNM problem. It became the problem of the PLP government. It appears, Mr Roberts, that Buddha’s gift has been rejected and is back with your government. Obviously, the traffic controllers were provoked into action, because – it would seem – of the Christie government’s failure to deal with their complaints during the past five years. This does not condone the behaviour of the unionists, the fall out from which has already caused too much damage to our tourist industry. But Buddha’s unwanted gift has been returned to where it belongs— the PLP government. This is one of the many reasons that the Bahamian people — to safeguard their own futures — should retire this government on May 10.

“This government has always acted in good faith in addressing labour issues,” Mr Roberts claimed. “This administration did so in resolving long-standing financial issues with the public school teachers, Customs, Immigration and we will do the same with the Air Traffic Controllers.”

We recall some of these labour issues to which Mr Roberts refers being long and drawn out, especially the battle with the Police Staff Association (PSA) concerning overtime pay for officers who worked additional hours during separate periods in 2013 and 2014. Government took the case all the way to the Appeals Court, costing the country a tidy sum in court fees. Having failed in both the Supreme Court and the Appeals Court, a judge in each court asked why the parties could not have sat around the table, discussed and settled the matter amicably. PSA chairman Dwight Smith also wondered why the matter had to go to court in the first place. This seems to negate Mr Robert’s claim that his government has always acted in good faith in addressing labour matters. So we hope that he will now accept the return of Buddha’s unwanted gift, and beat his breast with a couple of “mea culpas” (my fault) while he encourages his government to deal with this airport matter with the urgency that it deserves.

This in no way suggests that we condone the action of those controllers who decided either to walk off the job, or play sick and stay off the job, thereby not only inconveniencing Bahamians, but also non-Bahamians stranded at the airport. However, even more serious was the threat to the lives of passengers in aircraft, quickly running low on fuel as they hovered above, their pilots awaiting an all clear signal from the tower to land.

If angry comments of pilots, both commercial and private, are not acted upon, traffic controllers will quickly have worked themselves out of a job. The Lynden Pindling International Airport will no longer be the busy airport that it once was and controllers will no longer be needed. They will have made themselves redundant by their own reckless decisions.

We have often referred to the self destruct of the International Bazaar in Freeport, which has fallen into such disrepair that it should be bulldozed from sight.

The closure in 2004 of the Royal Oasis Golf Resort and Casino in Freeport put more than 1,200 Bahamians out of work.

The hotel struggled under union pressure from the day the new owners bought it in 1999 to the day in 2004 when Hurricane Frances so badly damaged it that the owners decided not to reopen. It was clear that the disruptive behaviour of the unions played a major role in that decision. At the time the hotel’s Bahamian senior vice president advised union leaders that “any responsible union would examine the current and future needs of its members, the fragile economic environment, the financial status of the company and global conditions” before it would even consider a strike.

With the hotel gone the unionists suddenly realised that the popular and busy International Bazaar in which many of them had invested, and operated their own businesses could no longer exist. The Bazaar drew its patrons from the hotel, and without the hotel there was no need for the Bazaar. Today it stands in shuttered decay, an eyesore in the area. Many jobs were lost, and unionists, led by leaders with tunnel vision, incapable of grasping the larger economic picture, were the greatest losers.

Air traffic controls should seriously consider the consequences of their actions. Government also has the responsibility of quickly resolving their issues. If not, the entire Bahamas will become irrelvant as a tourist resort.