THE COLLAPSE OF THE MINNIS ADMINSTRATION
Things have gone from bad to worse for the Hubert Minnis administration. The evidence is there that the country has had it with him and can’t wait for a general election to be called to get rid of him and the group of insensitive incompetents that inhabit around him. He leads them in incompetence.
The one that strikes us is the report from the nurses who walked off their jobs in both Grand Bahama and Nassau last week. They said that the Prime Minister was visibly irritable and obviously tired in their meeting on Thursday 6 August 2020. He told them that he did not want to talk about Covid. He was tired of talking about it.
So he should be. He buggered up the works in this country by allowing people to travel to Florida for 72 hours without having a negative Covid test to come back into the country. That by his own narrative led to the massive spread of the virus in The Bahamas that we now see. There are by the time we go to upload this column some 900 people with the virus and the number seems to be climbing by 50 or so per day. Each day, there is some report of people with underlying conditions dropping down dead and though they are not being recognized as deaths by Covid, it causes you to wonder.
No one believes the Minister of Health Renward Wells. He comes to the job as a feckless hack, who will do anything including singing for his supper to keep his political job. So when he speaks, he does not inspire confidence. Thank god for the health professionals who keep us going but they are struggling against the fact that they do not have the equipment to defend the country from the virus.
When the emergency first came back in March, the Prime Minister got the support for the PLP because he said he would use the time of the emergency to slow down the transmission of the virus, ramp up the health care and hospital services and we would be better prepared to meet a surge in cases. He lied. Because nothing has been done and now the country looks helpless in the face of this onslaught. The thing about it is, he hopes that no one remembers that it was he who caused it. Making these statements of his in the passive voice, disengaged from the decisions.
The decision though to lock down this country with a 24 hour curfew must be challenged in law. It is not reasonably justifiable in a democratic society and therefore violates article 29 (4) of the constitution. The measures should be set aside.
People have no money. Long lines at the food store and the pharmacy and the gas stations. All because of this lock down. It has made the place uncomfortable and people irritable. The place resembles a police state with policemen checking you at every step of the way. The rates of infection are not going down. So the policy is a complete and utter failure.
The FNM tries to suggest that the PLP should stop describing the problem and offer solutions. Their ma! The PLP has no obligation to give solutions to anything. But we do have an obligation to keep the FNM’s feet to the fire and ensure that Dr. Minnis is gone sooner rather than later.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday, 8th August, up to midnight: 172,935;
Number of hits for the month of August up to Saturday, 8th August, up to midnight: 188,998;
Number of hits for the year 2020 up to Saturday, 8th August, up to midnight: 5,987,019.