EDITOR, The Tribune.

NEW Year’s 2017 is coming up fast so we have to look back through 2016 or as 2017 is Election Year forward, even Christie can’t stop that or postpone it like he has the PLP Party Convention.....it’s coming! Imagine no Convention for nine years?

Oh the excuse is now on the two hurricanes - sorry the two storms should have caused employment and development - the clean-up, the rebuild, the millions of insurance moneys but....

• Travel to Long Island and from Joaquin still reconstruction - repair etc, even of Government buildings has not been completed or started - remember NEMA really got activated in the middle of 2016 some eight months after the storm.

• Unemployment? 2008 we all accept the effects - we had numerous Lehmann Bros financed proposed projects all dead but surely if

• Investments/OPM was awake they could have redirected these projects? If there is one Department of Government that can take the cake for being unproductive that is it.

• S&P downgraded The Bahamas I suspect on such clear evidence of past Government policies and actions and the lack of seriousness of the Government to collect owed taxes. Incredibly it seems come hell or high water Christie will launch NHI-I predict you may get your ‘smart card’ but little else.....then excuses.

• Grand Bahama - the words of the PM....Container Port closed so I presume the much flaunted expansion, MSC, is dead - Our Lucaya, Dreams etc, closed much flaunted everything in good stay opps that was their dream or delusion. Comment by the MP for West End at the recent ground breaking - simply All hail to the chief I’m loyal PC don’t fire me for doing such a bad job at Tourism. Yes what a bad job. Zero increase in stay-over visitors, yes Zero!

• Too much money floating doing absolutely nothing because there is zero confidence - too difficult to get approvals and those other reasons.

• Has anyone any idea how much money the now legalised Gaming places (Numbers) took in in their first year? Much more importantly how much did the houses give out in winnings? To what extent is Numbers drawing negatively on the economy. It seems to be the survival source for a lot of people. Seeking that rainbow thing - rags to riches (believe me it does not come!)

NIB - will it be able to pay Pensions in five-years? Government has been stalling the advised increase in weekly payments to meet the Actuary’s requirements. Can we afford a further increase?

• VAT - here the lack of understanding, from Government that really we have a VAT of 35% not 7.5%

Editor check wherever you have a service charge there is 7.5% so if there are five-steps to get an item off the dock it is 5x7.5% = 35%. So Finance projected pre-VAT the total revenue would be around $680m.... How on earth is it close to one billion? You mean the boys at Finance were so far off in their estimates? Even Christie says the economy is dead?

• NHI - remember what Christie argued the why we have to have NHI - the 700 dying because they did not get medical care - Christie by 2018 tell us how many still died because they could not afford life-saving medical care? One enormous political flam.

The PLP slate of candidates for 2017 - all seems to indicate only the seats of the two who left for the FNM and the forced retirement of Exuma will you see any new faces - a further term of tired geriatric MPs who have shown collectively how not to govern - don’t understand money missing and accountability.

The other parties might be all torn up but a segmented vote split between the Butler faction - the DNA could see a coalition which would save us.

Wonder how big the deficit will be by May, 2017? Successive Governments have left enormous deficits and debts (cheques issued but not released).

W THOMPSON

Nassau,

December 27, 2016.