The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Deputy Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

AS the Minnis administration celebrates two years in office, a senior Cabinet minister insisted yesterday the term so far has been one free of fundamental errors.

This is according to Attorney General Carl Bethel, in spite of Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis admitting last year the government had made “missteps” with the controversial Oban Energies deal planned for Grand Bahama.   “I don’t think there have been any fundamental errors,” Mr Bethel said while a guest on the 96.9 FM show ‘Morning Blend’. His comment came after he was asked by the show’s host, Dwight Strachan, to identify major missteps by the government.

Mr Bethel had earlier admitted that every new government makes mistakes but seemed to try to make a distinction between these and fundamental errors.

“If you look at the composition of the Cabinet, it is 95 percent very new ministers so there are bound to be missteps and hiccups, so the important thing is to learn from your errors it you will and to do better next time.

“So I think the Minnis administration has shown a capacity to pick up the pieces and move on and to change based on any errors that may have been made.”

When his attention was drawn to the Oban deal, Mr Bethel said: “With regard to that the government put a hold on it and has renegotiated and determined exactly what it would be prepared to agree to. If the proposed investor doesn’t agree to it, then that will be that.”

About one month after the first questions were raised about the people fronting Oban, followed by a ceremonial Heads of Agreement signing that plunged the administration into one of the most sustained controversies of its term, Dr Minnis confessed to some mistakes.

Mr Bethel was also asked whether it was too soon for the administration to be celebrating.

“It is a milestone,” he said. “It brings us to the point where the party is looking towards the next election as are the opposition and the Bahamian people.

“But it’s a point also of reflection to sit back and to look at what we’ve done and what path we’ve put the country on and to point out those things that we have achieved in a positive way and looking forward to seeing how they will over time bring about the changes the Bahamian people voted for. Essentially the bottom line is people want to feel the change they voted for in their pockets and their bank accounts.

“So the extent to which we have managed for example just in economic terms over the past two years to secure two years of more than two percent economic growth after in excess of 10 years of negative meaning recession in this country is in my view a commendable achievement.

“It’s not just economic growth. It’s been coupled with more financial discipline in terms of spending than I think we are used to in the Bahamas. At the end of the day it’s not how much you make it’s how much you save that determines whether you rise above your circumstances. The ability of the government to rein in spending but at the same time not compromise the provision of services to the people is very important.

“If you cut out waste and abuse of public funds then it enables the country to stabilise its economy (and) it gives the government greater freedom to direct funds towards the things that are needed to help people to empower them.”

National Security Minister Marvin Dames also agrees the government has accomplished much after having to do a tremendous amount of work.

He said yesterday: “I think we are on track and a good snapshot of that would be certainly when you look at what’s happening in the area of finance, education, tourism, crime all of these key sectors are performing very well and we’re moving into reaping time now. It’s reaping time. We’ve reduced our deficit coming out of the nine-month report by $130m and over the third quarter we would have some $40m surplus. Things are moving well.”

He also said: “We’re excited we are able to pay down on our debt. We said that during this period we had like $170m in old bills we would have already paid some $110m down on that. Tourism is moving; 6.5m in tourist arrivals and hopefully we are expected to eclipse that this year. The numbers on almost every Family Island is up in double digits, that’s good.”

Mr Dames also pointed to a “revolutionisation” of Bahamians schools and technological additions to the fight against crime as proof of the government’s accomplishments since 2017.