Grand Bahamian Sums Up The People’s Time
From a Grand Bahamian on FB
*From the Heart*
So let me get this straight…. You want to come to Grand Bahama to have a ‘Community Meeting’ (aka Rally) at FNM Headquarters after coming into office on a pack of lies and leaving us to die…
1. You gave yourselves the first few months as vacation after saying the country was about to collapse;
2. Your first order of business was to attempt to give yourselves a pay raise whilst saying the country was broke; you did however give yourselves gas allowances;
3. You had to admit that the VAT money was always there and that you lied (so Bahamian people, stop repeating that nonsense about stolen money, the minister of finance confirmed that it was a lie);
4. The ‘fake’ Baha Mar deal was indeed real and any positive tourism results are directly or indirectly related to this;
5. You fired over 3,000 government workers, but hired others;
6. You increased VAT by 60%, didn’t blink an eye for the small man, but rescinded quickly when your moneyed Lyford Cay associates complained;
7. You gave a sitting cabinet minister a lucrative contract when he himself confirmed that it was a conflict of interest;
8. Your ministers have been judicially condemned for their role in attempting to frame a case against a political adversary;
9. You have caused a destabilized power system with disastrous decisions; employee redundancies, board firings, lawsuits, and the list goes on.
10. You’ve had strikes from one union to the next; the nurses, junior doctors, teachers…
11. You believe that $100 dollars in no big deal after you’ve cut social services benefits for the most vulnerable in our society;
12. You’ve increased the per diem for Ministers to $250 per day and introduced a $150 per day per diem for your spouses.
13. For 2.5 years you have forsaken Ragged Island after Irma; but you want to go on 60-minutes with ‘Ragged Island on the brain’ as though it was yesterday.
14. For the people of Abaco and Grand Bahama your response to Dorian has been a dismal failure (thank God for the international and local non-profit organizations);
15. You’ve travelled the world to say that we are corrupt whilst witnessing the fraudulent signing of the OBAN deal to give away acres of prime Bahamian land for an oil facility (Oh… and the files miraculously went missing); No, we will never forget OBAN and what you attempted to inflict on the people of Grand Bahama.
16. You put a polarizing figure as the managing director of disaster relief and recovery, after she was already compromised as an agent for a cruise line charged with dumping waste in our waters;
17. And for Grand Bahama in particular, you have 5 sitting members of parliament; a governor general; a deputy prime minister and minister of finance; a minister of state for Grand Bahama; a minister of agriculture and marine resources; the new minister of disaster relief and yadda yadda yadda; 2 senators (well one had to resign); yet nothing is being done other than the projects the PLP left in place (the seawall in Smith’s Point; the Administration Complex in Eight Mile Rock; the Junior High School in Holmes Rock; the West End Clinic; the Fire Station; the Fishing Hole Causeway that you need to immediately fix; the cruise port that you moved from East Grand Bahama to Freeport to align with the wishes of GBPA and conflict with OBAN).
18. You buddied up with GBPA and Hutchison and cancelled the framework established to make both entities accountable to the point where government has no voice over unrelenting salted water that destroys our skin, our appliances, and our livelihood and increased power bills that we, who are already in survival-mode, should not be made to bear. What happened to the hurricane contingencies when GBPC was profiting all these years along with GBPA, the regulator?
19. You did also purchase a hotel for 50% more than its appraised value (even with properties not included in the agreement) after the owners took the insurance money; you did say that it was to save jobs but instead paid the former owner’s severance to employees with the Bahamian people’s money; you have incurred over $100M to date in expenditure associated with this transaction. You have placed this burden on the backs of the Bahamian people for generations to come.
20. Also, what about our international airport? Will this be another insurance grab and run, with the Bahamian people left to carry the burden? Shouldn’t it be our time… the Bahamian people’s time?
You are rude, rude, rude, to the media and to the Bahamian people, and you embarrass us around the globe.
Ragged Island is still suffering, Abaco is suffering; Grand Bahama is suffering, and we will not allow you, or any other government to believe that you can treat us like crap, come back with some trinkets and all is well. Never in the history of The Bahamas have we had such a vengeful, mean-spirited, spiteful, inept, embarrassing, unqualified government to serve our people and never again will we allow this travesty to reoccur.
We realize that you came in on lies; have no idea how to govern; never had a plan of action; believe that you are always in campaign mode; and rearing up to go again… Let me remind you that Grand Bahama is not on your run… we are trying to pick up the pieces, find a safe place to stay, food to eat, clothes to wear; maybe a job on this island with over 50% unemployment; perhaps some opportunities to make a decent living… please do us a favour, while you pontificate and believe that we are idiots… ring the damn bell!!!
_A Less-Tolerant Grand Bahamian_