The Tribune

THERE are those Bahamians who say that they are unhappy with the new government, because, after ten months in office, little has been done to turn the country around. Of course, the former government having left behind millions in unpaid bills so that there is nothing with which “to turn it around”, are encouraging these thoughts to try to cover their failed five years in office and create further confusion going forward.

The Christie government introduced VAT vowing that every penny collected from the pockets of Bahamians would go to reducing the national debt. Instead, not only has the national debt increased, but nothing has been left to carry on the needed repairs of a crumbling infrastructure or to satisfy unpaid bills. Instead, the PLP government seemed to have gone on a spending spree with the disappearance of VAT and an increased national debt. The debt, instead of going down with the injection of VAT, climbed from $3.9 billion to more than $6.5 billion under the PLP. A spending spree was had by all.

“When I mention that we faced a bare cupboard last May, I was not speaking in jest, for there is no humour in the fiscal morass we inherited – and the one that so severely constrains the room in which we have to manoeuvre,” Finance Minister Peter Turnquest told the House.

Recently, Health Minister Dr Duane Sands announced that the planned clinic for Palmetto Point, Eleuthera, would have to be cancelled for lack of funds. Instead, he said, it would be cheaper to purchase and outfit an existing building than to build a $27m clinic – funds this government does not have. And so, although the PLP had already paid the contractor $535,348.77 on a $929,875 contract, the FNM will pay the remaining $394,526.23 to end the contract. Asked if he believed the money was wasted, all Dr Sands would say was: “We got a nice hole.”

Even though the “nice hole” on which the clinic was to have been built has been paid for there is not enough money left to build the clinic. And so Minister Sands took the obvious way out to provide Palmetto Point residents with a functioning clinic. If the PLP had been serious about the clinic, it would have completed it. However, it was probably another election gimmick to win the people’s vote. It won’t have been the first time. We recall an Out Island bye-election some years ago when the people were promised electric lights if the PLP candidate won. Trucks, utility poles and other equipment were barged from Nassau to the island, all ready to erect light poles after the election — that is, if the PLP won. The PLP did win, but the equipment remained rusting on the roadside. The promise was never kept - at least by that government.

Today’s FNM government is now being criticised for trying to trim the civil service wage bill, which costs the Bahamian taxpayer more than $650m a year. The civil service is made up of many talented, hard working Bahamians, who serve the public well. However, it is also made up of those who are just taking up space - they are either indifferent or incompetent and should not be there. The government is trying to relieve Bahamian taxpayers of this burden and are now being criticised for it.

“We’re just verifying that we’re not paying phantoms,” Deputy Prime Minister Peter Turnquest told Tribune Business. “We want to do our best with this verification exercise so that we can clean up the payroll, and know who we’re dealing with and where they are.”

Stories of persons collecting more than one salary, and the continued presence on payroll of persons who are either deceased, retired or have left the Government’s service, have been rife within the public sector, Tribune Business reported.

There are countless tales of persons who only appear once a month to collect a cheque, or who are just seen “clocking in/clocking out” at the beginning and end of the working day after spending time on another job or in their own business.

In 1988 – 30 years ago – Sean McWeeney, then a Senator and chairman of the PLP, speaking at the party’s 33rd annual convention, told his party that “the civil service tree has just too many dead branches, and it is high time we shook up that tree good and proper to bring those dead branches down where they belong.” He said “the unhappy fact of the matter is that not only are there too many people in the civil service, there are too many people doing nothing in the civil service.”

And then there were Bahamian legislators like former Bahamasair chairman Philip Bethel, MP for Governor’s Harbour, Eleuthera, who had the nerve to announce from a public platform that “God gave this country to the PLP” and in 1991 admit that under his chairmanship, Bahamasair had become “almost a social service.” He boasted that he put any Family Islander on Bahamasair’s payroll, qualified or not. “They have a nickname for me, ‘Bro,’” he said proudly. “‘Bro, aint nothing you could do for Sally? Aint nothing you could do for Harry?’ You know how it is, I say well, you know I am going to try help you,” and qualified or not, they were added to Bahamasair’s payroll, and the Bahamian people paid. He was not the only MP who operated that way, but so far the only one naive enough to admit it.

Today, the new government is attempting to “shake off the dead branches in the civil service” – as recommended by a PLP chairman 30 years ago — so surely the complaints now being heard cannot be coming from the corner of the defeated PLP, which had added 9,000 persons to the public payroll last year – the final year of their government. So far the FNM government with its streamlining efforts has been able to cut about $75 million from the civil service payroll.

And, who has benefitted? Eventually it will be the complaining Bahamian people for whom this money will be used to purchase much needed equipment, rebuild the islands’ infrastructure and provide the required clinics and medical staff.

There are those who complain that the FNM government is busy firing PLPs from government service. Many leaving the government payroll are either retiring or have come to the end of their contracts - in other words, although their leaving has contributed to reducing the payroll, they were not fired. However, as the Public Service Ministry tries to streamline the service — finding that an estimated 70 per cent of persons employed by the Christie government were not vetted by the Public Service — it can be presumed that they were given jobs, not because they were qualified, but because they were PLPs. The majority were just vetted when the FNM took office and at least 50 of them have not passed the vetting process. Garden Hiils MP Brensil Rolle has said his Ministry was advised by the police that these persons should not be consider for employment. This goes to show the lack of respect that the PLP government had for us hardworking Bahamians, who were being forced to pay for persons who should not have been employed. And so when firing time came, it was obviously PLPs who were being fired, not because they were PLP, but because they were not qualified.

Surely, the PLP would not want us to open our PLP files, where it will be found that the PLP government and its various ministers made it clear that their firings were not because those being fired were not qualified, but because they were FNM. A PLP minister, now deceased, announced in making his decisions that he was “only checking for PLPs” - obviously the rest of us be damned.

So Bahamians stop complaining, your country is critically ill — it is now up to each and every one of you to join with those who are trying to give it new life. In the end just remember we are neither FNM nor PLP, first and foremost we are Bahamians.