EDITOR, The Tribune.

The ineptitude being displayed by the Perry Christie-led Government, one year into its second non-consecutive term in office is too exaggerated to be accidental. Such cluelessness and incompetence by a cohort of adult professional men and women – attorneys, medical doctors, businessmen, bankers, trade unionists, and civil servants, including law enforcement officers – cannot be haphazard.

In just 12 months in office, this PLP Government has damaged our democracy, demeaned our Parliament and compromised the integrity of the public sector. Foreign investors are confused by arbitrary changes being made to immigration policies, seemingly prior to consideration by the Bahamas Cabinet.

The police force has been forced to resume social services duties under the banner of Urban Renewal 2.0 and further, to adopt new methods of reporting crime so as to disguise the true incidence of crime.

As a result, Bahamians in their majority have come to believe and accept that they have been “hoodwinked, bamboozled and lied to” by the PLP.

Anxious to disadvantage any FNM sympathiser, one of the first actions by the new PLP Government was to cancel the contract for the repaving of the roads on San Salvador. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Works undertook to ensure that a new contract would be issued, presumably to a more politically acceptable company expeditiously. Twelve months later, the roads remain unpaved, no new contract has been issued and the people of San Salvador who bought into the PLP promise of believing in Bahamians are now living a different reality – pot hole filled roads.

Within weeks of coming to office, the new PLP Government that won election on a platform which professed that the Party “Believes in Bahamians” relieved the hospital administrator, Bahamian citizen Coralee Adderely from her post at the Princess Margaret Hospital reportedly to settle a private score. Mrs Adderely was the only board-certified hospital administrator in the public service. The lead position at PMH remains vacant 12 months later – to the detriment of the standards of delivery of health and medical services to the Bahamian public.

Beverley Finley suffered a similar fate at the Nassau Straw Market where she was fired from her position as manager. Family Island Administrators Christofield Johnson in Eleuthera, Benjamin Pinder in Abaco and Jordon Ritchie in Long Island were all summarily terminated. Additional Family Island administrators were sent home on administrative leave with full pay. They remained on leave for more than nine months and at least one still remains so while an officer against whom criminal charges had been laid have had those charges withdrawn and been posted to a Family Island District.

The operation to dismiss Algernon Cargill, from his position as Director of the National Insurance Board was not as easily accomplished notwithstanding the orchestrated PLP-government plot to malign Mr Cargill’s professional integrity. The matter remains in limbo, the political tool, Greg Moss, first used to execute the plan against Mr Cargill has himself been sacrificed, though his political leadership – Party Chairman and Prime Minister – have all given assurances that his political future in the PLP remains bright – a reward for good service perhaps?

Meanwhile, the Bahamian public awaits the publication of the release of the Forensic Audit Report into the operations of the National Insurance Board promised originally for January of this year. The Minister responsible, Shane Gibson, who received the report, claims that its contents shocked him; yet more than a month after receiving the report, he continued to tell the media that he and his Cabinet colleagues are studying the report and hence cannot make its contents public. At the end of April, he gave a new release date of 1 May.

In the public sector, competent, professional Bahamian civil servants are being transferred and reassigned without rhyme or reason with terrible results on levels of efficiency and standards of delivery of services. These Bahamian public officers, regardless of political party affiliation or leaning have previously served under both PLP and FNM administrations advancing to the top of their areas of competence. But competence and dedication have not provided them with job security in this latest PLP Government in which overt political support is being demanded of all and sundry.

Most egregious has been the re-engagement of retired police and customs officers and their appointment to positions of leadership over gazetted officers in the police force and senior officers who ought to properly be leading the Customs Department.

Elsewhere in the Public Service, many tell stories about the significant number of civil servants seeking employment in the private sector – not for monetary reasons as has been the case in earlier times – but because of their inability to function in such a politically charged environment where partisan affiliation and political intrigue trumps competence, ability and reason.

Similar ploys are afoot at the Department of Immigration where the old PLP policy “pay to play” has been reinstated at levels surpassing anything dared in the feared Pindling Immigration era.

Minister Fred Mitchell is set to try and convince Bahamians that he is acting to preserve jobs for Bahamians first, beginning with jobs as maids and gardeners – a quota that even he cannot find sufficient numbers of Bahamians to fill. The subterfuge continues – in the office of the Speaker of the House who has taken partisanship in his Debate rulings to historic lows. The clearest expression of this PLP Government’s disregard for democratic norms was the ease with which the Speaker chose to bar student representatives from the College of the Bahamas from gaining access to the House of Assembly to listen to the debate on a motion renamed Labour Day after the “Father of the Trade Union Movement in The Bahamas”, Sir Randol Fawkes. By his own account, he and the police believed that well-dressed COB students accompanied by a faculty advisor presented a security risk to the House proceedings. But we are also expected to believe that Prime Minister Christie knew nothing about either the security concerns or the plan to block the students – which is what the Prime Minister told the college students when he ran into them in Rawson Square following the meeting of the House!

And now the PLP have under consideration a Bill that would open casino gambling in The Bahamas to foreign residents and work permit holders while barring Bahamian citizens the same access. The objection to this provision by senior members of the PLP in the media is likely another ploy. We can expect that Mr Christie will soon announce that having heard the plea of the people, residents and work permit holders will continue to be excluded. The Prime Minister might also excuse this offensive Gaming Bill by recalling that the Constitutional Commission will review whether the prohibition of Bahamians engaging in casino gambling should be lifted.

It is a cruel irony that the heirs of “Black Tuesday” have been so reduced in stature and bloated with self-importance that they today remind us all of George Orwell’s Animal Farm in which the animal-leaders declared: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

KIRKLAND TURNER

Nassau,

May 1, 2013