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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
Minnis should thank the PLP government
Bradley B. Roberts
Progressive Liberal Party
The problem with the media comments attributed to Dr. Minnis is that it was he and the FNM who were kicked out of office in May 2012 before the FNM “destroyed the country” because their “record of poor judgment in governance” that placed The Bahamas on a path to “disaster.” Further, Dr. Minnis needs to be more concerned about immediate problems and turmoil within his party and the threat of his leadership, let alone an early general election.
Minnis may have a short memory and is banking on the Bahamian people having a short memory, but I must remind him that his government’s mismanagement of the Bahamian economy exacerbated the recession locally and the suffering of thousands of Bahamian families where NO net jobs were created and unemployment doubled. It was under his watch that government revenue deteriorated while the debt spiraled out of control; tourist arrivals and tourism expenditure plummeted; no meaningful investment project was attracted to The Bahamas and many businesses were forced to shut down because of poorly executed public works.
During Dr. Minnis’ tenure as cabinet Minister, The Bahamas not only suffered multiple downgrades of its sovereign credit rating, but the deleterious effects of the FNM’S poor stewardship ricocheted throughout the country months after their departure when Standard and Poors downgraded The Bahamas because of the policy decisions of Dr. Minnis and the FNM government.
I submit that Dr. Minnis is at least five years late in calling for the resignation of the Bahamas cabinet; he should have called for that wholesale resignation as far back as 2009 when he and his colleagues unwittingly placed this country on a clear collision course with economic disaster.
The people of The Bahamas in their wisdom spared this country from that disaster and just two years later, stopover arrivals are up more than 30% in the Family Islands; total arrivals in 2013 reached an historic 6.2 million; the government has approved some 35 investment projects that are valued billions of dollars and have created thousands of jobs. Given the enormous mess the PLP inherited in May 2007, to his credit and thanks to his vision, tenacity and strong and focused leadership, Prime Minister Perry G. Christie and his team have successfully pulled this country from the proverbial fiscal cliff and has effectively turned this economy around in just two short years. He succeeded against tremendous politically motivated opposition and headwinds.
The Bahamas Hotel Industry is preparing for perhaps its “best physical product in 20 years.” Occupancy rates are high in part because of the stellar work of the Ministry of Tourism in aggressively marketing the Bahamas overseas; growing sports and religious tourism and opening new gates and tourism field offices in Canada and the United States. I congratulate Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe and his team for their growth strategy and their yeoman’s effort in facilitating this meteoric turn around in our number one industry.
Grand Bahama is on the upswing economically as this government has turned around some 20 years of tourism decline there. Bimini, Eleuthera, Exuma and San Salvador are also enjoying tremendous tourism growth and jobs creation.
I thank the entire government for its hard work on behalf of the Bahamian people; they have righted this ship of state, placed it on course and moving in the right direction. I thank them for taking on many of the difficult and controversial policy issues that are necessary for the country’s continued growth and sustained development. Dr. Minnis should be thankful as well.
In light of these easily verifiable facts based on empirical data, both Dr. Minnis and his outrageous, sensational and headline grabbing rhetoric cannot be taken seriously as he lacks credibility. He has shamelessly opposed and backed away from every piece of legislation and policy initiative that his FNM government advanced while he sat as a Cabinet Minister. This man simply lacks credibility and nothing he says can be trusted because he does not appear to believe his own rhetoric.
While this PLP government was hard at work on behalf of the Bahamian people, Dr. Minnis was busy distancing himself from the mess his FNM government left behind and trying his very best to obfuscate, oppose and block every piece of legislation or policy advanced by the PLP government to improve the quality of life for Bahamians everywhere.
While the government continues to work hard to build this country through making the tough but necessary decisions that Minnis and the FNM lacked the political courage and will to make, the Bahamian people should expect Minnis to do what he knows how to do best: find the most outrageous statement to make in hopes of grabbing a headline in a desperate attempt to appear relevant while offering NO viable policy alternative.
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