THE PRIME MINISTER’S ADDRESS TO LYFORD CAY
The following is the printed address to the Lyford Cay Club by Prime Minister Phili Davis that has the FNM and their surrogates with their knickers in a twist:
REMARKS BY
HON. PHILIP E. DAVIS, KC, MP PRIME MINISTER OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE BAHAMAS TO THE LYFORD CAY CLUB
Saturday 25th November 2023
ONWARD FROM 50: A VISION FOR THE BAHAMAS
- INTRODUCTION
I am pleased to be able to share with you this evening, some thoughts as to how my government is implementing its vision for the next 50 years of Bahamian Independence.
Back in 1973, at the birth of our nation, the ‘Promise of Independence’ was motivated by two compelling historical forces: firstly, the desire to throw off the shackles of slavery and colonialism; and secondly, to create a society where political rights and freedoms, along with economic opportunity and autonomy, were available to all.
As our founding father, Sir Lynden Pindling put it, in his first address to the United Nations:
“We wish to live in peace; we wish to satisfy the needs, both spiritual and physical of our own people; we wish to be neither dominated or coerced; and we wish to create a society built on the sound foundation of constitutional authority.”
This is the context upon which The Commonwealth of The Bahamas was founded. It is also the context which has framed not only our first 50 years, but should also drive and inform our trajectory over the next 50 years.
Understanding this context is critical to understanding how we got to where we are today, and the opportunities, challenges and constraints of how we move forward.
And so, in the first part of these remarks, I will offer a brief overview of our ‘Road to Independence’, followed by a short assessment of our national development during the first 50 years.
I shall then go on to highlight some of the principles, policies, plans and priorities of my administration, and some of the longer-term issues that we are addressing.
I will presume that your presence here demonstrates your keen interest in, and desire to participate in the positive national development of our country.
Throughout these comments, I therefore invite you to consider how you might fit into our plans.
Consider how best you can you play a part in helping to make life and living, better in our Bahamas.
- THE ROAD TO INDEPENDENCE
So let us first consider the pre-Independence period, the 20th century up until 1967.
Although it may sometimes feel like it, this is not ancient history. It is the world in which I grew up, a world which was the reality for everyone in this country 50 years and older.
We often describe the period in racial terms, focusing on the divide that then existed between the ruling white minority and the black majority.
Thankfully, we have moved away from that extreme separation, but we still have some way to go to integrate our communities more thoroughly.
This Bahamian version of ‘apartheid’ was supported by an economic system that did all that it could, to protect the interests of the oligarchs.
In turn, the national development goals and strategies of the day, were to stoutly defend and maintain the status quo.
Education, health, and economic opportunities were concentrated on that privileged minority,
and the economy and the society were structured around those so privileged.
One of the most lethal weapons for oppression is the deprivation of education; and so education for all stopped shortly after primary school, meaning both black and white Bahamians.
Healthcare was not universal, nor was the right to vote.
As was widely reported at the time, particularly by foreign newspapers like the Miami Herald in the 1960s, corruption and conflicts of interest among politicians were endemic.
The public treasury was used as a bank for private interests.
And these Islands of The Bahamas were ruled by a Kleptocracy, whereby land and other natural resources were granted to and exploited for the benefit of the ruling class.
This was against both the ordinary white and black Bahamians.
That initial parcelling out of our natural resources, means that those who benefitted from it were given an enormous head-start, in terms of the ability to accumulate capital and
wealth.
Today we can easily see how that generational wealth has conferred economic security upon those families.
This is what enabled the infrastructural interests and holdings they have since accrued.
Hopefully none of this is surprising to anyone. But I mention it because that vision of national development was the structure and foundation inherited by the newly-independent Bahamas in 1973.
This was the context inherited by Sir Lynden Pindling and his colleagues.
Their approach to national development is captured in the title Dr. Doris Johnson chose for her book: ‘The Quiet Revolution’.
‘Quiet’ because Pindling wanted to ensure that the wealth-holders didn’t flee the country, possibly causing the economy to collapse; and ‘Revolution’ because he also wanted to achieve what the dictionary defines as ‘a forcible overthrow of a social order’.
- THE FIRST 50 YEARS
This brings us to the period after Independence.
From 1967 to 1992, and especially after Independence in 1973, the speed and extent of the changes of those years were immense.
Up until now, it remains the most transformational time in our post-Independence history.
If you want to see a tangible expression of those changes, contrast the Yellow Pages Phone Book in 1967 with that of 1992.
Look at the faces of the professionals
advertising there.
When you survey the ads for doctors, lawyers, accountants, architects, engineers and so on, it is striking the change you see during that period, in the racial and national profiles of those professionals.
Education and capacity-building had brought about a new and sizeable middle-class of successful Bahamians.
Apart from the social transformation, the hallmarks of this period were the creation of the foundational institutions and structures of our modern Bahamas:-
The Central Bank;
The Royal Bahamas Defence Force; The National Insurance Scheme;
Compulsory, free education through to high school for all;
And of course, the founding of the University of The Bahamas.
With the majority of both white and blacks, now able to be properly-educated, and given access to the jobs and careers that had been previously denied, a new middle-class emerged, one largely composed of members of the racial majority, keen to build homes and businesses and create wealth for themselves and future generations.
But with the old order left intact, it was perhaps foreseeable that an economic ‘glass ceiling’ would tacitly remain.
Despite the unquestionable achievements of the Pindling era, I see two forces at play which undermined progress.
Education gave thousands of Bahamians new paths to self-empowerment and opportunity. But the economy was not sufficiently expanded and diversified in order to accommodate them.
After the initial burst of middle-class success, educated Bahamians were later encouraged to become ‘job-seekers’, rather than people with
high ambitions to pursue careers and create wealth.
With access to the big sectors of the economy still largely remaining in the hands of the few, over time, frustration and cynicism has grown among the many.
In the context of where we find ourselves today, I see strong similarities between the desire for fundamental transformational change that existed then, and the present desire for fundamental transformational change that exists now.
Our context today, derives from the legacy of that time.
I shall return to this point.
Suffice to say, we can fairly characterise the plan for national development during the Pindling years, as the implementation of ‘The Quiet Revolution’.
With the first change of government since Independence taking place in 1992, under Prime Minister Ingraham, national development was characterised by a more managerial approach.
The status quo was left largely intact.
A quick glance at some of the biggest initiatives of that time, reflect an ideological shift which removed certain economic protections for Bahamians that had been implemented during the Pindling years.
The repeal of the Immovable Property Act, the privatisation of the phone company BTC, the monopolisation of the port of entry – the Arawak port – and the extensive roadworks initiatives, all allowed private interests to profit magnificently from government institutions.
Other social initiatives, such as the liberal- ization of the radio airwaves, introduced similar ostensibly ‘free-market’ changes.
This proliferation of media, and especially the radio call-in format, was the early version of the social media landscape on which we live today.
While the language of the time was about the virtues of capitalism and so on, in fact, public money was used to generously subsidise many of these projects, and create protections against competition and other market forces.
And so we see that the priorities of national development shifted once-again.
Privatisation did not change the basic economic model, and instead shifted the emphasis to the
promotion and protection of established economic interests.
Notwithstanding the stated goal of having the expanded wealth ‘trickle down’ to the wider society, it is not clear that there was in fact, any beneficial ‘trickle-down’ effect.
But it meant that those who already had significant capital, or those who were already able to raise capital, did very well.
The ‘shareholder society’, as envisioned, never materialised, instead manifested growing disparities in income.
The Christie years, interspersed with the Ingraham years – from 2002 to 2017 – shifted the focus back to a national development agenda, with a more centrist blend of the approaches of Pindling and Ingraham.
Big, bold initiatives like Anchor Projects, The Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science Institute, Urban Renewal, and National Health Insurance, sought to extend the agenda of the Quiet Revolution.
The doubling of investment in education also signalled a return to Pindling’s ideological roots.
And of course, the launch of a formal ‘National Development Plan’ shifted the idea of governance and planning into something far more structured, stable, and long-term.
But the basic economic model remained unchanged.
In tourism, the focus shifted to high-volume rather than high-value tourism.
I suspect that the encouragement of large- scale, foreign direct investments into ventures like BahaMar and Atlantis, probably peaked in the Ingraham, and then the Christie years.
And so we come to the more recent times.
In many ways it’s far too soon to tell what the legacy of the Minnis will be.
I wouldn’t want this lecture to stray into some of the current political battles, but I struggle to see any significant positive impact on national development since 2017, during the Minnis administration.
Before Dorian, and before Covid, it appeared that the approach to the economy was that of the small business-owner, where so-called ‘balancing-the-books’ was the holy grail of governance, with other goals for the nation barely-articulated, and certainly not prioritised.
It is simply not good enough to say that the previous administration suffered from bad luck.
A hurricane and a pandemic, challenging as they are, do not sufficiently explain…what I call… the obvious incompetence, and blatant lack of compassion, which were the hallmarks of that administration.
This is not just personal opinion: for significant periods during the pandemic, The Bahamas was ranked at the bottom of tables comparing the effective responses of governments around the world.
Pretty poor!
In fact, the evidence suggests that both catastrophic events were used as cover for some rather unsavoury practices.
We have also seen signs of systematic efforts to hand over some of the ordinary functions of the state, to the private sector, resulting in unjustified losses of public revenue, and poorer services to citizens.
I have heard it said by some that they don’t wish to involve themselves in our politics.
This is understandable.
But not getting involved, should be distinguished from a decision to remain naïve about our politics altogether.
It carries the risk that you may be deceived, or easily misled, by those in pursuit of local political agendas.
I speak from personal experience.
In recent years, my party generally, and me personally, have been slandered by some in this area, with wild, preposterous allegations.
Anyone with even scant knowledge of our political landscape, would have been able to dismiss them as foolish nonsense, but to those
who did not know, it caused great anxiety, and harm.
Thankfully, in time the truth was revealed.
But you can see how easy it was to manipulate those who simply did not know, by those who were thought credible, because they are prominent citizens who live in this area.
- THE DAVIS ADMINISTRATION
I have spent some time offering my view of the first 50 years of our national development, in order that you appreciate the context and the drivers that inform our vision, policies and plans.
So, what is the vision of my Administration?
Fundamentally, our aspirations are the same as most democracies around the world: to have the fundamental political rights and freedoms considered necessary for civilized development; and also to have the economic opportunities and paths to wealth creation to build greater security for future generations.
Please note that I did not say a ‘world class tourist destination’.
The vision that we pursue is one that involves helping to improve the lives of everyone who lives here.
Given the many challenges we inherited, both the long-standing ones which I referred to, and the more short-term ones of recent years, it is plain to see that there is much to do.
Our animating ideology, our driving principle is rooted in the concept of ‘Economic Justice’. ‘Economic Justice’ is based on the simple but profound idea that an economy will be more
successful, if it is fairer.
It seeks to redress some of the inequalities created by the inherited system.
By giving everyone a fair chance, most should prosper.
What does this mean in practice?
We want to have in place, the economic structures to ensure that people earn a fair, and decent income.
We want workers to earn not just a minimum wage, but a liveable wage.
We will work to make the system of taxation fairer.
We want entrepreneurs to be able to access industries and markets, and have a fair chance of generating profits.
Of course, complete economic equality is unrealistic as a goal.
What is achievable, however, and morally compelling, is to protect that which I believe to be the common denominators of humanity.
To have loving relationships.
To be able to engage with family and friends. To build sufficient personal and economic security to sleep peacefully at night.
To nurture the next generation.
To enjoy the benefits of being part of a community.
In short, to be able to participate in the joys of Life itself!
To do this, we will ensure that public investment in education, housing, transportation and so on, benefit the many.
For example, you can see how, in our first two years, we have already succeeded in making broader access to housing a priority.
Notwithstanding the many urgent and important needs of the country, I have prioritized five areas of focus for my administration.
Given my earlier comments, you will appreciate why ‘Education’ and ‘Health’ are the top two areas.
‘Education’ is a force multiplier for all that we intend to do.
In our campaign platform document, ‘Blueprint for Change’, 11% of the commitments made relate to education in some form or another.
These past two years have been fully occupied with overcoming the effects of the lockdowns in the preceding years.
Many children and young people simply stopped going to school, or stopped doing schoolwork online.
Attainment levels declined.
And so we have had to work extremely hard to find and bring back into the school system, every single child of school age.
We resolved that no child should be left behind. I’m happy to say that we are succeeding.
Had we not tackled the problems head on, the learning lost during those years would negatively impact our country for a generation or more.
Apart from overcoming current challenges, we are taking a broad approach to Education.
We see Education as more than ‘something that happens to young people in schools’.
We are developing programmes for lifelong learning covering topics such as technology, and financial literacy.
In a push to develop our creative economy, we are also about to launch a formal consultation on a new ‘School for the Creative and Performing Arts’.
This will be full-time, conservatory-style teaching to prepare students for world-class careers.
You will soon be hearing a lot more about this.
Our second priority area is committed to fostering better ‘Health and Wellness’ throughout our population.
Current macro-health indicators give cause for concern.
For example, according to the World Obesity Federation, in 2021 The Bahamas had an adult obesity rate of 27.9 percent.1
1 http://www.tribune242.com/news/2022/jul/19/worst-pandemic-facing-bahamas-obesity/
Given the implications for the development of cancers and Type-2 diabetes, it’s an issue we also need to tackle head-on.
Therefore, we are developing our healthcare infrastructure, increasing the number of doctors and nurses in the system, as well as expanding the treatment options.
In fact, construction has already begun on a new hospital in Grand Bahama, and plans for a new hospital in New Providence are underway. In our Family Islands, more clinics are being renovated and new ones are being built.
The second two priority areas, characterise our approach to economic development.
Our focus is to stimulate the number of available jobs in the country, and also to take active measures to reduce the cost of living.
To be clear:
I am not suggesting that the government take on the role of Chief Employer.
Instead, we are diversifying and expanding our economy by supporting the growth of new sectors.
This has two benefits.
Most obviously, it will encourage the flourishing of new skills and talent, as well as open new sources of national income.
For example, in a very short time, we have already put ourselves at the forefront of the Digital Assets Industry.
Our regulatory framework is rightly praised as being world-class and pace-setting.
Related legislative work in establishing a market in carbon credits is part of this initiative.
We are encouraging Bahamians to pursue the kind of education and training to enable them to secure outstanding careers in this sector.
These initiatives to pursue diversification, also reduce our reliance on tourism and financial
services, so that should there be future crises on par with a global pandemic, closing our physical borders would not immediately spell economic doom.
Post-Covid, most countries have seen sharp rises in costs and prices, including The Bahamas.
But here in The Bahamas, we also have a structural issue.
In February 2020, before the pandemic, it was reported that The Bahamas ranked as the sixth most expensive nation in which to live.2
Not much has changed.
2 http://www.tribune242.com/news/2020/feb/05/economy-fears-bahamas-ranked-worlds-sixth-most/
We are currently trying to understand in detail, the reasons behind it.
As a consumptive economy, almost completely reliant on imports, it is easy to suppose that higher costs abroad are driving higher prices here.
This is certainly part of the issue, but it is not the full story.
We are committed to addressing it.
The final of the five priority areas is to secure a
reduction in crime.
Our research has revealed that the vast majority of crimes committed here are gang- related.
We are therefore working on a ‘whole-system’ response by government to break up these gangs and end their activities.
Our efforts are organised across the criminal lifecycle, from Prevention, Policing and Prosecution, through to Punishment and Rehabilitation.
It’s still early days, but we are already seeing signs that what we are doing is working.
We will not let up in our efforts.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
All of these priority areas are being addressed at a time when our economy is getting back on track.
We inherited a perilous fiscal position, but on virtually every significant economic indicator, the country is heading in the right direction.
As I reported in our Budget Statement earlier this year:
- In 2022, our Real GDP growth was recorded at 14.4% and in 2023, projected to settle back to around 4.3%.
- We have met out Revenue forecasts, the first administration to do so in a very long time, overcoming the scepticism of some of the multilateral institutions.
- We are paying off our national debt.
- Our deficit is returning to manageable levels.
- We have record levels of people in employment, with the unemployment rate being the lowest in recent memory.
- Slowly but surely, our credit ratings are improving.
- And by 2025, we are on track to have a balanced budget!
We think that there is much about which, we can be proud.
And we are!
- LONG-TERM PRIORITIES
While these economic successes are obviously extremely welcome, we do not allow them to obscure some of the more entrenched issues we face.
Over the long-term, bigger opportunities and bigger challenges lie in store.
Our administration is not halting in our ambition, or hesitating in rising to the challenge.
Let me offer a selection of some of the longer- term issues.
In order to support long-term planning, we have revived the National Development Plan. We will continue to review and update our National Business Model.
We are pursuing a tourism industry which pursues greater value from revenue, rather than just a greater volume of visitors.
As I mentioned earlier, we are diversifying our economy into the creative industries, and into new, digitally-based sectors in finance and technology.
Notwithstanding the unfortunate experience we have suffered in the early days of crypto- currency, our prospects have not been harmed.
As I said earlier this year, at the Coin Desk Consensus Conference in Austin, Texas:
“When it comes to the digital asset sector, we are open for business. When you are looking for a jurisdiction where you can confidently invest, look no further than the Bahamas.”
Investors certainly heeded the call.
The digital asset sector continues to grow, with new players being licensed, and continuing to want to do business here.
However, despite these innovative developments, we are still a long way from being a fully-digitised society.
It’s an area in which we need to make significant investment, hopefully through Public- Private Partnerships.
Longer term, I am very proud of our greater engagement in international affairs.
This has yielded not only greater prominence for The Bahamas on the world stage, but much greater influence on decisions which have a major impact on our lives and livelihoods.
Take the impact of climate change.
We are one of the 10 countries most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change, with sea levels projected to continue to rise, and hurricanes to land with more frequency and greater intensity.
We need to build our defences, to make ourselves more resilient so that we can withstand these impacts.
You will appreciate the urgency when I tell you that more than a third of our national debt results from the impact of climate change.
We live through repeated cycles of disaster and reconstruction.
And each time disaster strikes, the infrastructure, which was already weakened by a previous storm, costs more and more to repair and reconstruct.
Our greater international engagement means that we now sit at the table with the rule- makers of international frameworks, agreements and financial accords, and are not merely rule-takers as we have been in the past.
I’ll offer two examples of how this increased international engagement benefited The Bahamas.
Through our expanded influence and leadership, we are helping to lead on efforts by Caricom to address the collapse of the government in Haiti, and to end the violence and brutality.
Those events have led to ever-more desperate attempts by people to leave, and, many of them have made life-threatening attempts to come to The Bahamas.
In helping the people of Haiti, we are also helping to slow the flow of irregular migration to this country.
Our voice has also been heard loud and clear on efforts to secure funding for Small Island Developing States such as ours.
Last year, for the first time, The Bahamas convened a special summit of Caricom Leaders here in Nassau, to agree a common position before heading to the global negotiations last year at COP27 in Egypt.
Our regional efforts certainly helped to bring about the successful conclusion of those talks.
- CONCLUSION: JOIN THE MISSION
Before I finish, I wish to invite you to consider three ways in which you can join us, and be a part of our mission over the next 50 years to develop a better Bahamas.
First and foremost, I invite you to deepen and widen your engagement with the Bahamian people.
For many years now, when we ask our tourists for feedback on their time spent here, it is overwhelmingly the case that, those who have engaged with Bahamians in any meaningful way, have had a much better time.
I am sure that many of you will have had a similar experience.
So I invite you to go beyond those who are your immediate neighbours and engage with our culture.
Go beyond those who you employ and explore the potential of genuine friendships.
One of the joys of living in a small country is that you can encounter people in a variety of situations, and easily strike up a conversation.
Most weekends, there are food and drink festivals of one kind or another, art exhibitions, and a variety of events, theatre performances
and worship services, that offer pathways to new friendships and experiences.
Go pay them a visit.
My second invitation is to invite you to be a goodwill ambassador for The Bahamas.
Wherever you go, wherever life takes you, think of us.
When you come across new opportunities, new information and new networks, think whether and how we might benefit.
Would The Bahamas make a good home for the latest Artificial Intelligence Lab?
Would our small population, or large expanse of seas, make a good incubator in which to test the latest renewable technology?
We think our message about the joys of Bahamian tourism already resonates.
You can help to spread the word that yes, we want people to come for the beaches: but we also want them to stay for the culture; and then we want them come back with their investment.
My final invitation is to ask you to truly invest in The Bahamas by giving some of your time.
Your life experiences, languages, histories, cultures and wisdom, will be fascinating and enriching to many Bahamians, especially those who have limited exposure to other countries.
Imagine how your investment of time could have a truly, transformative effect, especially on the lives of young people who may find in you the hero they never knew existed!
Those of you who already invest in scholarships for our promising school-leavers, will likely already have had an experience similar to what I describe.
And I say thank you – thank you for the support you’ve given over the years which has helped so many of our young people.
Perhaps there are others among you who would like to invest in life-changing initiatives, like our ‘Free Schools Breakfast Programme’.
Even though it is still in its pilot phase, this programme is already demonstrating that school attendance, and positive educational outcomes are already the result of this initiative.
I believe that supporting our children in this way, with a free hot meal in the morning, will be a crowning glory of our administration.
To those of you who might be wondering how to get involved, or what to do next: I invite you to contact my office to express your interest.
Or better yet, pick up the phone or drop an email directly to a group or organisation that attracts your interest.
They may be surprised, but I guarantee you the welcome will be warm.
Tell them the Prime Minister told you to call!
Friends:
Over these next 50 years, our vision and plans for our people are those which I believe sit at the heart of the ‘Promise of Independence’.
By implementing policies whose benefits for all spread across education, health, jobs, and financial support, we mark a definitive break from those pre-Independence years.
By building on the foundation of the institutions and traditions of the past 50 years, we will continue to fulfil the ‘Promise of Independence’.
And by promoting a vision of life beyond Paradise – where Sun, Sand and Sea are
elevated into Culture, Smart Technology, and Climate Resilience, where principles of Economic Justice and ‘Opportunity for All’ prevail – this is the legacy my government seeks to leave, as the foundation for generations to come.
This is how we will move onward from 50. This is how we will succeed.
I invite you to join us! Thank you.
END