By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

FREE National Movement candidate for South Beach Jeffery Lloyd articulated an ambitious agenda for transforming education in the country during an FNM press conference yesterday.

FNM leader Dr Hubert Minnis has referred to Mr Lloyd as a likely education minister if the FNM gains control of the government.

Among other things, Mr Lloyd called yesterday for greater compensation packages for teachers.

“If we can afford to spend $30m on a jump up and shake down carnival in the street over the course of two years, and again this year, surely, we can find the money to pay teachers better, recruit the best students to be teachers and properly resource our schools,” he said, however he miscalculated the amount spent on the event thus far.

According to the Bahamas National Festival Commission, the Christie administration has spent $19.4m for the event over the past two years. The remaining funding for Junkanoo Carnival, $3.3m, has been injected by sponsors over the past two years, according to figures from the BNFC.

Nonetheless, Mr Lloyd said there must be more investment in educational infrastructure.

He said he visited the Government High School (GHS) last week Friday following a stabbing incident the day before.

He said he concluded that GHS should be demolished, adding that a vice-principal of the school told him they “lease the property to rats.”

“We must invest in our schools - build more classrooms, better schools, and properly equip them with the vital resources they need, including but not limited to: computers, libraries, books and learning tools,” he said. “And, please do not tell me that these exist at large in our public schools. I have been touring them and they are woefully and inadequately outfitted.”

Mr Lloyd said the FNM would make pre-school mandatory for all children beginning at age 30 months.

He also called for the re-establishment of the Youth Empowerment and Skills Training Institute (YEAST) programme.

Mr Lloyd founded the institute in the late 1990s to help at-risk young men. However, the programme was de-funded by the FNM, then led by former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, at the dawn of the global financial crisis of 2008.

Mr Lloyd said a revamped YEAST programme would cater to young men, young women and their parents.

Media criticism

When asked whether the FNM has examined costing issues associated with their plans, Mr Lloyd explained they would pay for it by rooting out corruption - but not before criticising the media for what he called disproportionately harsh coverage of the FNM.

“Let me say for a moment a few words to my beloved brothers and friends in the media,” said Mr Lloyd, who recently resigned from his position as a talk-show host at Star 106.5FM. “You have occupied a default negative position towards the Free National Movement and I consider it to be unfair. Let me tell you why. There is a challenge that is now on the way to the PLP and it is reported by the media as a challenge. A challenge is exercised in the FNM, oh the FNM is all up in disarray; a constitutionally prescribed exercise in which any member of the FNM could challenge any position in our convention is all of a sudden a big controversy and some kind of anarchy in the party. You have several persons who are contesting at any given time to be chosen by the party to be ratified. They have it in the PLP; we have it in the FNM. But when we have it in the FNM, oh big controversy. “Mind you, my brother in Exuma, a sitting member of Parliament is displaced by a new person, but if that was the FNM… Now, you talking to me, I’m the grandfather of the media in this country. Take a small page, a little bit of respectful lecturing from me this evening.”

Mr Lloyd added the country is ripe with corruption and “t’iefing”.

“It is estimated that nearly 20 per cent if not more of our natural resources by way of money is just seeping out through the door. We are looking at anywhere between $300 and $400m dollars,” he said, adding that cutting down on such “waste” will help the party find the money needed to pay for its ambitious education plan.