Statement by Hon. Charles Maynard

Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture

17 March 2010

Correcting Neville Wisdom’s Distortions

Despite the worst record of any Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, former Minister Neville Wisdom has issued a disjointed, uninformed and misleading statement on the Government’s broad accomplishments in youth, sports and culture.

His failure in Opposition to offer any constructive advice is consistent with his extraordinary failures as a Minister. In an attempt to mask these failures and rewrite the history on his weak leadership and paltry record, Mr. Wisdom has now resorted to distortions.

Youth Programmes

To better serve Bahamian youth, the FNM is implementing a more comprehensive and effective strategy for youth development. Towards this end we are upgrading, strengthening and revising various youth programmes.

Mr. Wisdom has commented on the National Youth Service Programme (NYSP). I remind him of the genesis of the programme. The initiative grew out of the YEAST programme which was launched by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in conjunction with an FNM Government.

After representations by a number of interested and civic-minded persons, we reviewed the NYSP. This included broad consultation with various persons and groups, among them the Archdiocese and others involved in its founding.

While the intentions of the programme were well-meaning, our review concluded that more at-risk youth could be served for the same level of significant funding that was directed towards a smaller cohort of at-risk youth in the NYSP.

Towards this end, we are reviewing a number of initiatives that can reach significantly more of the at-risk youth whom Mr. Wisdom purports to be concerned about. In due course I will advise the public of some of these proposed initiatives. Presently, I wish to remind a conveniently absent-minded Mr. Wisdom of various new and upgraded youth development programmes implemented by the FNM.

In 2007 the FNM launched one of the most innovative youth and young adult development programmes in Bahamian history. Self Starters was designed to give young Bahamians between the ages of 18 and 30 access to capital and professional mentoring by experienced professionals to guide them in the development of their business plans.

To date more than 400 young Bahamians have received funding for business start-ups at a cost of some $1.7 million. These young people would not otherwise have had access to capital because of their youth or socio-economic circumstances. Young people in New Providence , Grand Bahama , Abaco, Andros , Crooked Island , Eleuthera and Exuma have taken advantage of this programme.

The FNM has also increased Junior Achievement’s allotted budget from $100,000 in 2006-07 to $200,000 in 2009-10; increased stipends to 24 youth bands; dramatically increased the summer youth programme budget to a million dollars; created a Family Island desk in the Ministry of Youth; and allocated $60,000 for athletic scholarships to College of The Bahamas

Culture and Heritage

Mr. Wisdom’s self-serving comments on the Gambier Youth Park Project are highly selective and grossly misleading. The initial programme had a clear end date which was reached on Mr. Wisdom’s watch.

The next step after the completion of the programme was the development of a plan to leverage the talents, dynamism and cultural assets of Gambier by bringing tourists to the historic village.

Mr. Wisdom and his colleague at the Ministry of Tourism absolutely failed to create such a plan. Still, the spirit and objectives of that programme are essential for national development in general and the development of our historic heritage communities and sites in particular.

To honour the spirit and the objectives behind the Gambier project, the FNM is launching the most ambitious dedicated heritage tourism programme in the nation’s history. In addition to Gambier, our efforts will empower young people and residents in Fox Hill, Adelaide and Bain and Grant’s Town.

Towards this end, the Bahamas will host for the first time the Eighth Annual Travel Professionals of Colour (TPOC) Annual Conference and Trade Show from April 22 to 25. With over 300 expected participants the show represents a market of millions of dollars in business as well as a variety of socio-economic opportunities.

Though the leadership of TPOC approached the PLP Government about hosting such a groundbreaking conference in the Bahamas , the PLP never got its act together in bringing this prominent association and conference to the country.

Through TPOC, the historic communities mentioned will be able to better showcase their unique history while potentially earning millions of dollars in revenue, and empowering many young people including some disadvantaged ones.

Mr. Wisdom’s comments on Junkanoo are incredible in light of his lack of credibility in this area of our cultural life. He was stunningly negligent and unaccountable with regard to the exorbitant amount of public funds he spent on Junkanoo bleachers.

The money he scandalously wasted, and for which he was never held accountable, could have funded many of the youth programmes he continues to purport to care about.

Further, because of his cavalier attitude towards access to affordable Junkanoo tickets for scores of Bahamians, prices for Junkanoo tickets climbed dramatically during his tenure. The FNM has r educed the exorbitant cost of Junkanoo tickets instituted by the PLP, to pre-2002 levels.

Sports Facilities

With no regard for his own abysmal record, Mr. Wisdom has developed amnesia with regard to the state of sports facilities in the country, including the Betty Kelly Kenning Swim Complex. I wish to remind Mr. Wisdom that it was the FNM that created many of these sporting facilities, including the swim complex, which was built with the extraordinarily generous assistance of Mrs. Kelly Kenning.

The FNM has a programme for the refurbishment and updating of athletic facilities, many of which were left in a serious state of disrepair because of PLP negligence. Despite the yearly deterioration of various facilities during Mr. Wisdom’s five years in office, he is now shamelessly expressing concern about the very facilities he neglected. This is par for the course with the PLP.

PLP politicians are good at tearing things down and neglecting public infrastructure. They are absolute failures at rebuilding and initiating new projects. It was the PLP and Mr. Wisdom who tore down the softball and baseball facilities at the Queen Elizabeth Sports Centre. They never got around to rebuilding these facilities.

After creating a master plan over the past two years, the FNM will rebuild these facilities into world class venues with updated amenities. It must be a source of embarrassment for Mr. Wisdom that he and the PLP failed to build any major sporting facilities during their five years in office.

Moreover, because the FNM established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China , the Bahamas was eventually offered the gift of a new national stadium. Despite the fact that this was a gift, the PLP never got around to causing the stadium to be built. The FNM did. The stadium will be opened in July 2011.

Sadly, for someone who has frequently boasted of his dedication to athletics, Mr. Wisdom’s failure to organize a single Bahamas Games over the course of five years is yet another example of talk over action. Indeed in the 2004-05 budgetary cycle, funding for the Games was stripped entirely from the budget.

The social well-being, progress and empowerment of our young people require consistent action, not endless rhetoric such as that offered by Mr. Wisdom. In his rambling and incoherent statement he offers not a single new idea or programme that may actually help today’s youth.

Instead, his comments are geared towards boosting his credentials with his colleagues in the run-up to the next election. Mr. Wisdom seems to be more concerned about his future rather than that of the youth, sporting, and cultural programmes of the country.