The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I HAVE absolutely no doubt that the defunct Progressive Liberal Party will not return to high office anytime soon. This is a sad assessment for many but the truth will always set one “free”.

The national address by the Hon Leader of the Rump Opposition, my lifelong friend, benefactor, and for many years, until recently, my political leader, was stale, visionless and more of the same song and dance which came to be the trade marks of that vanquished party.

He did not offer a sincere apology to the wonderful people of our nation for the way the Christie administration jacked all of you right up with no apparent shame!

It is truly a new day in the nation when one is able to see rejected parties and politicians talking about digging graves when they themselves were the ones who politically and economically slaughtered the dreams and aspirations of tens of thousands of unwashed Bahamians.

They were the very ones who did not do due diligence on all sorts of contracts that were allegedly entered into without the proper legal documentation and, in at least one case the Christie bandwagon, failed or refused to pay The Seventh-Day Adventists ‘them’ some monies for the use of its Wulff Road site.

It has been revealed that some eight million dollars have been injected into that property despite the Christie & Wrecking Crew, politically speaking, can’t point to the approved scope of actual work on the ground; certified permits and designs approved by the Ministry of Works or, some say, who the ‘contractors’ were/are, to this very day. Some suggest that many have “ran” to the hills in an effort to avoid the Bank Lane shuffle. Now, the Leader of the rump, says that the PLP invested in education?

University of The Bahamas, in many ways, can be ‘credited’ to the PLP but it must never be forgotten that it was under regimes of former Prime Minister, Hubert A Ingraham, that serious work started down there for the emergence to university status.

Under the PLP, of which Brave was an integral part, we saw the emergence of The National Training Centre which is a great concept and which could, along with a ramp up and expanded BTVI go a long way in increasing education and instruction in vocational skills and disciplines.

There is good money to be earned in these areas but the PLP was too busy doing whatever they were doing that they did not or could not see the city for the smoke, literally, coming from Harrold Road.

Questionable contracts were, allegedly, awarded like candy by the Ministry of Education under the watch of Brave and Fitzgerald dem. Now, Brave, says he saw nothing in the PM’s address to ‘deal’ with education?

The PLP played us like a House of Cards with no real structure or foundation. In less than 18 months they collected and borrowed almost two billion dollars and hundreds of millions more (yet to be publicly accounted for) and Brave said that the PM presented no policy initiative to ‘jump start’ the morbid bound economy! Shades of Tin Gods & Iron Men 3.00!

The problem which faces Dr Minnis, et al, is that we have been in a national decline, across the board since the return of the ill-fated PLP in 2012.

In short, that party, led by Brave and Christie, make no mistake about it, jacked you all right up to the point where there is now turbulence. The economy which the FNM inherited is not working for the unwashed masses.

A House of Cards, containing all sorts of Jokers; Clowns; Queens and Knaves, readily portrays the now rejected PLP. I find it almost laughable to have read the remarks attributed to Brave, my beloved friend and brother.

I was even more astounded to read remarks attributed to Obediah Hercules Wilchcombe, former cabinet minister with Brave and Christie dem, found his voice to suggest that the PLP was a big tent. I wonder when he came to this conceptualisation in his imagination? Raynard ‘Moon Beam’ Rigby responded with a nonsense filled tirade.

The Hon Chester Cooper (PLP) Exuma was slapped down to size by Brave, politically speaking, at a public branch meeting. Bradley Roberts says take to the barricades. Another one says that he will strike the PM right in his mouth, publicly.

The PLP has fallen down and, like a House of Cards, many pieces of which have been blown away, literally, by the winds of change, it will be almost impossible to regroup under this motley crew.

I had hopes for Brave right up until last week when he distributed his letter to the PM via the media, even if unintentionally. The House of Cards is no more.

Minnis and crew must prove and appear to be different than Christie, Davis & Company. I wish them all well, but, as always, in all things, to God be the glory.

ORTLAND H BODIE, Jr

Nassau,

August 1, 2017.