OUR FRIENDS THE UNITED STATES TAKE OUR MEDICAL EQUIPMENT
So the FNM government has now found out that no matter how craven you are with regard to your relationship with the United States, the US is not a friend of The Bahamas. When it comes to its interests, it is the interest of the United States that comes first. We make a clear distinction here between citizens of the United States who are people of good will and help our country and its Government that has its own agenda. Sometimes they coincide but now is not one of those times. The Tribune reported that on 3rd April 2020, the United States Coastguard told the owners of the MV Betty K that a shipment of medical equipment bought and paid for by the Public Hospitals Authority of The Bahamas had to be returned to the United States because President Donald Trump, the man who Hubert Minnis our Prime Minister, has been kissing up to ever since the FNM got office, signed an order that the medical equipment could not be exported from the US. The boat went back with the shipment. On 10 April 2020, Sidney Collie, the Bahamian Ambassador to the U.S. reported that he had received a call from the U. S. National Security Council saying that the order had been reversed and that the shipment could leave. There were congratulations all around to the Ambassador for a great job and the FNM claimed that it had done a great job on behalf of the Bahamian people. Except not so fast, lots of questions, for example, did the boat owners and the Public Hospitals Authority and The Bahamas government follow the right procedures in the first place? Remember what we said about the FNM, experts at making mistakes and gaffes then they solve the problem and then congratulate themselves on doing a great job when it was their fault in the first place. Then came another announcement, the Organization of American States has in fact negotiated a general purchase agreement for medical equipment for all states in the hemisphere through the OAS. So it turns out that the Ambassador may have had nothing at all really to do with it, other than to receive the phone call to say the shipment was good to go. The Betty K says the boat will bring the shipment in on Tuesday 14 April 2020 and one supposes all’s well that ends well. Just a foot note the U S President Donald Trump was asked about this decision at his press conference on 10 April 2020. He seemed totally clueless. He started talking about stopping drugs from coming in the United States from The Bahamas and denied there was an export ban. He did not seem to know that he had signed the order. What in the world?