The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune

It is ironic that on today’s date, a Sunday and Mother’s Day coupled with the third year of the FNM in power, the sky is overcast and it looks like a shower will fall down later. We all know that when it rains the crabs start to walk. The masses of the Bahamian people have woken up from what turned out to be a long and unexpected nightmare.

Minnis and his crew have wreaked economic havoc and Corona-inspired deaths, albeit unintentionally, on the unsuspecting people of The Bahamas. Minnis and his side kick, Peter Turnquest, obviously, do not know what the hell they are doing or how and when to get us out of this pandemic. In fact, we have yet to hear about a single plan of action to recover the thousands of jobs which were abruptly lost, for ever, when the PM, a man who has never been known for numeracy, woke up one morning and closed the entire nation down at the stroke of a pen.......what is he and the crew doing to devise real means of reconstruction?

The hurricane season is right around the corner....no visible preparations. Where is Captain Stephen Russell and NEMA? Where is former Senate President Kaye Forbes-Smith? Where is Minister of State Iram Lewis (FNM-Central Grand Bahama)? After almost one solid year after Dorian dead bodies are still stored in a trailer in Abaco. Many areas of that island are without electricity. A handful of DOME units have been erected and distributed to FNM cronies and pretenders.

Relative to the Duane Sands fiasco there are elements of collective ministerial responsibilities which the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) must flesh out. I realised years ago that while the FNM surely means well, it and its leadership came to office totally unprepared. The knuckled-headed Minister of Finance is a work in progress as, clearly, he and his team know next to nothing about high finance and economic policies.

God forbid, but The Bahamas is headed for a severe depression the likes of which we have never seen, except you are over 100 years old. Banks and financial institutions, along with the hotel and real estate sectors are in deep trouble and many will go under, literally from the Corona and very bad financial manipulation by Minnis and his people. Our battered economy has been dealt body blows throughout the administration of Minnis and Turnquest. Carl Bethel used to jet off to Belgium, France and other European nations at taxpayers’ expense and he has yet to bring home any bacon, if only a small piece.

Food security and the supply chains are already under assault and there are no sensible solutions being put forward by Prime Minister Hubert Alexander Minnis. Rome is burning and they are saying “don’t blame us”. Thank God they cannot blame the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) for the abject hell which most of us are catching right now with a larger dosage yet to come.

We have nothing against a certain class and demographics but to appoint a Food Security Panel, headed by a white Bahamian woman, very distinguished by the way, who has never been hungry or financially challenged in her entire life, is dead wrong and sends the wrong message. One of her parents is former Senate President and a big operative within the FNM. Nothing, prima facie, is wrong with that but the coded message is a dangerous one.

To add insult to injury the PM, in his abundant wisdom has appointed yet another committee headed by Acting Financial Secretary, Marlon Johnson, and Kenword Kerr, CEO of Providence Management, which has multiple multi-million dollar public/private sector contracts with the Minnis administration sends a terrible message and could lead one to conclude that the PM has a very shallow bench and that possibly many of the members of his assorted ad hoc committees are being recycled at best.

I have reached out to Minnis, et al, over the years but they are on a run all to themselves and they act and believe as if they will be in power, especially absolutely, for years and years to come. Sir Lynden, et al, probably believed and acted out on the same bogus premises. In politics, like other aspects of life, we are mere actors on the stage.

When called we play our role. After the conclusion, we move off or are thrown off stage to make room for the next actor or actress. In The Bahamas, no matter the encore and the cat calls for me, it is the same. The first and only term of Minnis is winding down, mercifully, and soon the Egyptians whom we see now, we shall soon see no more. To God then, in all things, be the glory.

ORTLAND H. BODIE, JR.

Nassau

May 10, 2020