The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune

MARK Twain once said that a lie can travel half way round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. The Free National Movement (FNM) administration’s public relations machinery is struggling to dispel the narrative that it has purged the public sector of thousands of Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) supporters following its May 10, 2017 general election victory. In June Public Service Minister Brensil Rolle informed the media that the rumour of 2,500 individuals being fired or disengaged from the government was untrue. Rolle said that less than 500 persons were let go. There’s a massive difference between 500 and 2,500. I see no reason for Rolle to mislead the press as what he said could’ve easily been ascertained by media personnel.

Yet five months later the rumour that thousands of Bahamians, mainly PLPs, have been axed by Rolle and Co continues to persist through propaganda media outlets such as Bahamas Press, which is now harping on Cabinet Minister Brent Symonette receiving a five-year lease agreement of $900,000 per annum for his Town Centre Mall and Deputy to the Governor General C A Smith’s purported annual salary of $60,000 for the post of Non-resident Ambassador of The Bahamas to Panama.

So while it has no issue hanging thousands of struggling minimum wage Bahamians out to dry, the FNM is busy fixing up its boys. A wealthy Bay Street Boys member gets another lucrative government deal and an alleged political pensioner and former FNM cabinet minister gets to take home two massive salaries from the Treasury, despite all the talk about taking austerity measures and tightening the belt after it was announced that VAT would be increased by 60 percent.

That’s the narrative that is being bandied around in media outlets such as Bahamas Press. The Minnis administration is being portrayed as aloof. Both the PLP and FNM have been known to reward their prominent supporters with government largesse and diplomatic posts that pays handsomely. Peter is no better than Paul in this regard.

If the FNM is going to be condemned for rewarding Smith with a high paying diplomatic post, then the PLP should be condemned too. As for Symonette leasing his Town Centre Mall to the government for $900,000 per annum, I have voiced my opposition to this transaction already. I warned the Minnis administration in a letter to the editor in The Nassau Guardian that the PLP will use this lease agreement as a political talking point in 2022. I hope this controversial decision will not come back to haunt the FNM.

Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels said that if “you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” If left unchecked, the rumour of thousands being mercilessly terminated will be considered infallible truth by thousands of uninformed and disgruntled swing voters in 2022. The FNM can ill afford for this to happen.

Rolle stated in Parliament that the PLP added 9,000 individuals to the public sector between 2012-2017. I’m guessing that the 1,700 contractual employees that were mentioned incessantly in the media in addition to the 3,000 52 week job programme workers were factored into the 9,000 figure.

The overwhelming majority of the 1,700 workers were hired within months of the election. Therefore, they can be considered political hires. They were never made permanent by the PLP. In fact, many of these workers’ contracts had expired months after May 2017.

Their dismissals cannot be considered terminations. This is a point that the FNM’s public relations personnel has to continue to stress ad nauseam to the Bahamian people, or it will lose the public relations war. Bahamas Press has a gullible readership and therefore will continue playing fast and loose with the facts. The FNM has got to dispel the narrative that it terminated thousands of Bahamians.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport

Grand Bahama

November, 2018