The Tribune

By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

THE Free National Movement is underwhelmed and disappointed by Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis’ budget communication, with the party’s leader, Michael Pintard, calling it much worse than last year’s speech.

Mr Pintard said Mr Davis failed to address several key concerns about the future of Bahamas Power and Light, the cost of living and gender-based violence, calling the communication “another set of disappointing and inadequate policy plans”. 

Earlier this week, Director of Communications Latrae Rahming said Mr Davis would address “historical challenges and legacy issues” that plague Bahamians and foreshadowed announcements concerning BPL.

However, Mr Davis did not give a detailed update on the future of BPL yesterday, prompting Mr Pintard to say: “We are having a significant amount of problems concerning BPL and the Prime Minister we thought would have been addressing this issue. How are we going to get reliability in the provision of power?”

“What is his future plan with respect to reducing the amount of rental generation that we have? In a dramatic way, the Davis administration has increased the amount of money Bahamians are spending on a private company for rental generation. 

“And they are losing active use of several of the engines that they found in perfect working order when they came to government. He did not address any of these issues. He talked broadly about a crumbling infrastructure but, again, laid out no plans in terms of what they would do. 

“We believe, as the workers of BPL fear, that the government is engaging or on the path to a privatisation exercise.

“To date, there has been no request for proposal that has been issued and the employees have no real assurance as to who they will be working for.”

 Mr Pintard said the communication failed to address the “stubbornly high inflation”, adding that the Davis administration is out of touch with how the cost of living impacts the average Bahamian.

“It is clear that we are having a cash crunch with this administration, notwithstanding their boast about revenue, notwithstanding their boasts about how well their revenue enhancement agency is performing,” he said. 

“They would have to explain why we are not feeling the impact of what they consider to be ahead of target revenue earnings.” 

Mr Davis said during his speech that inflation has been on a downward path since its peak. 

With the country’s murder count at 52, Mr Pintard also criticised the prime minister for not saying more about crime, particularly crimes against children and women. 

“This communication did not address what their intentions are, not only to comprehensively address crime in general, but gender-based violence in particular,” he said.

He said it is unclear whether the administration has budgeted money for a shelter for women and children as promised.

Mr Pintard did find something positive about the budget, saying some of the customs duty reductions were important because they would benefit the fishing and manufacturing industries.