The Tribune

By LARRY SMITH

THE level of irrational and deceptive discourse from our political leaders can sometimes be stupefying.

Take Leslie Miller. Please. But first let me remind you he is a longtime Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) MP – since the 1980s – who was appointed BEC chairman for the second time in Perry Christie’s last term, even though he and his family did not pay their own utility bills - to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Mr Miller was also presumably chairman while a well-organised theft ring was siphoning millions from BEC. I am not suggesting he was involved, but official sources tell me this scam, which is now under close police investigation, has been ongoing for “many years.”

Mr Miller chaired BEC from 2012 until late 2015, and he ran his mouth the whole time. His latest buffoonery was to blame the current managers of the state-owned utility provider, now known as Bahamas Power & Light (BPL), for the incessant power cuts we face.

He has also claimed that his former board had a sure-fire plan (financed by our social security funds no less) to resolve all of the country’s power woes, “but we got stopped dead in our tracks because those foreigners thought they knew better.”

This is just so much horseradish, it should make you want to vomit. First of all, the “foreigners” were put in place by Mr Miller’s own party. And as well-researched letters to the editor by Tony Zervos (See letters HERE and HERE) have shown, we have been in an “electrical crisis” for the past 50-odd years.

In 1973, then Prime Minister Lynden Pindling grandly opened the new Blue Hills Power Station, which he insisted would make load shedding “a thing of the past.”

He also acknowledged a “big boo boo” by the government: “We ordered some engines that really didn’t perform up to scratch.” He added that this unfortunate mistake had led to the “electricity crisis that occurred during the years of 1967, 1968, 1969 and part of 1970”, which he described as “the years the lights failed”.

In 1981, newspaper reports said the economy had been “jolted” by power cuts and tourists were packing their bags to leave. As a result, opposition leader Norman Solomon said there were “intense concerns” about the country’s future.

Two years later, The Tribune reported that PLP convention delegates had to leave their hotel due to a lengthy power cut. Other headlines said the blackouts were “driving tourists away” and causing “heavy financial losses” to food stores and other businesses.

In 1987 (when Leslie Miller was first elected to Parliament), newspapers reported that power cuts caused the closure of the House of Assembly and other government offices.

In 1989 (when Mr Miller chaired BEC for the first time), The Tribune’s headline was “BEC loadshedding to continue - blackouts bring some businesses to their knees”.

In 1990 (while Mr Miller was still chairman), reports of generator failures and island-wide blackouts led to an exodus of tourists from New Providence hotels. And the House of Assembly was again forced to suspend business.

According to a Tribune editorial at the time, “Before anyone can start to rebuild the nation, there must be a reliable power supply. At the end of the day, Bahamians have to conclude that they receive very poor value for their money. However, whatever the cause, the country cannot continue to go on like this.”

But of course, the country did go on like that. And it is still going on like that. And Mr Miller has been a major facilitator the whole time. It’s all part of the “arrogant, know-it-all attitudes” cited by former PLP Cabinet minister Loftus Roker recently.

The central problem at BEC/BPL is the same as that afflicting the rest of the country - no accountability. By that I mean no accountability for line staff, no accountability for managers, no accountability for board members, and no accountability for ministers.

This means that for more than half a century at least, policies - financial and otherwise - were largely determined by political fancy or personal whimsy, without regard for the consequences. Failures and mistakes were either covered up or ignored. And since there was no accountability, almost anything could be done.

As a result, our electrical infrastructure has not been properly planned, financed or maintained - despite the brave efforts of some to address the technical issues over time.

BAMSI Unlimited

Another example of deceitful double-talk are the pronouncements by former government leaders involving the infamous Bahamas Agricultural and Marine Science Institute (BAMSI) on Andros.

On its website, the so-called “institute” is described as the “brainchild” of former Prime Minister Perry Christie. It is said to play a key role in the great leader’s plan for a more modern and prosperous nation.

In Parliament some time ago, Mr Christie himself predicted that BAMSI would “transform the agricultural sector and provide a more secure marine environment”.

And just last September, former Agriculture Minister V Alfred Gray’s declared that BAMSI was already a “huge success”.

As I wrote at the time: “Food imports will be halved within years, Gray suggested (which must mean we will be eating half as much). But his more fact-checkable point was that BAMSI had already produced $100m worth of food - mostly bananas.”

You don’t have to know what $100m worth of bananas looks like to know that statement is ludicrous.

Earlier, Mr Christie had grandiloquently declared that $100m would be invested in BAMSI. He claimed this would lead to a shining new city on Andros, although critics dismissed it as a slush fund for PLP cronies.

But now we hear that Mr Christie was actually quite close in his calculations. According to the current Agriculture Minister Renward Wells, more than $80m has already gone down the BAMSI plug hole – and that is likely to be an underestimate.

Unfortunately, we are nowhere near to establishing that glorious new city in the pine barren.

The bottom line is this: There may be good reasons for setting up a research farm to support agriculture, but the University of the Bahamas already exists and was designated as our national research centre by the very same Perry Christie who authorised BAMSI.

The same can be said of the National Training Agency - why not beef up the existing Bahamas Technical & Vocational Institute? Why set up another huge operation?

These initiatives were little more political talking points that cost an awful lot of money to support a bevy of cronies. If you don’t agree, then provide the facts and figures that say otherwise. It’s called accountability.

The Desperate Need for Change

These examples indicate that we need to make changes quickly because the country is on the brink. The current administration has the ultimate mandate from the electorate to effect that change. In fact, there will never be another opportunity like this one unless the country collapses completely.

A recent article in The Nassau Guardian by University of the Bahamas Professor Ian Bethell-Bennett puts this clearly into focus. On a recent tour of the southern islands, he reported derelict schools, abandoned ports and rampant cronyism. He called it “national sabotage.”

“In Mathew Town, for example, the school partially burnt in 2011 and remains the same as it was after the fire. No-one seems to be bothered…Moreover, all the damage from the last two hurricanes seems unmitigated. Where does all the hurricane relief money go? Who is asked to account for it? The country has been undermined by the state.”

We can’t continue throwing money away on frivolous political vanity projects or siphoning public funds into the pockets of spurious “consultants” while ignoring good governance and starving our more effective and deserving institutions and programmes of funds and attention.

Bimini update

The island of North Bimini is just 3,100 acres in size - and most of those acres are covered by mangrove wetland, with only few hundred acres of hard land supporting about 2,000 people.

In addition to the small settlements of Alice and Bailey Towns, North Bimini now supports hundreds of cookie-cutter homes and condos, a mega-yacht marina, a bulkheaded artificial island dredged from the lagoon, restaurants, pools, bars, shops, tennis courts, and a beach club.

It’s called Bimini Bay, and the resort’s history goes back to 1984, when the Pindling government gave the former owners blanket approval for a similar scale of development, without a thought for the environmental or social consequences.

The property includes a big chunk of North Bimini with five miles of ocean frontage, as well as parts of a pristine mangrove wetland surrounding the lagoon on East Bimini.

Despite some clearing and dredging, the initial plans were never implemented. And in 1995, a Cuban-American from Miami named Gerardo Capo acquired the property for $3m.

Capo’s Rav Bahamas construction company launched the current development two years later, after the landscape had been duly scraped to the bare limestone rock. The first phase of the resort opened in 2007, and then nosedived after the 2008 financial crisis.

Capo’s original plans called for dredging an 85-foot wide channel entirely around Bimini’s mangrove-fringed lagoon and bulkheading most of the land - essentially killing the only marine nursery in the region. And then establishing a golf course on the East Wells wetlands.

The ultimate size and scope of the resort has fluctuated over the years, with both the golf course and a water theme park on and off the table several times. And many residents, as well as scientists at the Bimini Biological Field Station, spent years in a futile effort to conserve the island’s natural environment—an oasis in a vast expanse of water.

In 2010, the Ingraham administration flatly ruled out a golf course on North Bimini and limited the northern extent of the development to the area around Paradise Point. But the Christie administration subsequently approved a controversial ferry pier and terminal, as well as the huge investment by Getting/Resort World, which completely changed the island for good.

Lately, there has been a new upsurge of public protests against the resort because of rumours that the Christie administration earlier this year again approved a golf course on the wetlands of East Wells.

The other outstanding issue is the fact that, although the government designated the eastern portion of North Bimini as a marine protected area in 2010, the heads of agreement between the developer and the government were never revised to reflect this. And the government has failed to proceed with what is required to legally establish the marine protected area (MPA).

There needs to be a full public airing of the current status of agreements, approvals and plans for Bimini. And early movement towards establishment of the MPA.

The developer, Gerardo Capo, agreed to comment for this article, but did not respond by press time.