Ok. I agree. There should be enough wise head in and outside government to set up a strong standard of Transparency as well as a strong culture of claiming,decensy,integrity,dignity & respect also wish to see all POLICE PATROL VEHICLES FLASHING THEIR COLORFUL LIGHTS ALL OVER THE NIGHTS AND DAYS ON THE STREETS OF NEW PROVIDENCE.
That's returning feeling of confidence and sense of public safety is badly needed and the government don't have any excuse not to satisfy this claiming,DEMANDS from all of us.
Overfloodding of overseas help,double VAT, loans here and loans there. Need to see TANGIBLE RESULTS.!!
There should be not turning back in fighting corruption at government CABINETS' Members. How rich are they now? Let's apply "The Public Disclosure Act" and put an independent effective group of auditors,independent responsible television including ZNS,willing not to be in complicity with the wrongdoing by simply exposing it.
They should be EFFECTIVE and NOT LIKE the so called INDEPENDENT PROSECUTION. There is no change,we still see a bunch of drunkers in public areas like corners and public parks illegally ,in the open,drinking liquior,smoking dopes and disturbing the peace, starting and harassing young girls passing by. We still see cars bad parking on corners,provoking accidents. Why the prosecution got independent then?
This is demagoguery from government. Anyway,sticky fingers still out here abusing the public pulse.

Look at Peter,!! , in the picture above. He looks like he doesn't live here anymore,managing so much money WITHOUT showing any TANGIBLE RESULTS.! And, WITHOUT ANY TRANSPARENCY.

Editor,"
You state, "So, what is it that has allowed this tiny country with a population of just 800,000 – not much greater than our own – to be so generous.
The answer is oil."
No, the answer is generosity, as you rightly point out in comparison to the many other rich countries donations.
And, if Guyana was hit with a major catastrophe, and The Bahamas was in their shoes, would we expect similar generosity from The Bahamas? Hmmm.

While you complain about relying on Wheel of Fortune thinking, isn't this what you are advocating? You are betting against those most knowledgeable on sea level rise and its causes. You are betting against the rapidity of these suggested changes. You are betting that those who lead this country will behave better and do better than they ever have before in our history. You are betting that there will not be an oil spill, or other untold environmental impacts which affect our #1 Industry, tourism. You are betting that there will be no other serious deleterious impacts of drilling for oil in our waters.
You thinking is not blue sky, it is peppered with a cry for help that won't come.

'We need to be prepared to do something radical. The electorate will go along with whatever government offers as a viable alternative to drag us out of the morass we find ourselves in.", you say. No it won't. The populace has a second grade level of thinking, you the editor have shown a third grade level. We see this every election time. Children, not adults.
You are still willing to gamble the existence of our entire nation, for the spin of the wheel that would benefit no more than a handful of people. Every honest thinker in the world agrees with the majority of climate scientists that the world must divest itself of fossil fuels. Yet, like a drug addict, you are advocating to, just this once, do it again for our collective benefit? And, you would call this "blue sky thinking"? Yikes.
We have so far to go. And, time is short.
Yet, we still have to contend with juvenile thinking such as this editorial. And, we wonder why we are in such terrible shape. Just can't figure it out with our blue sky thinking, hey?

We simply shorten the amount of time The Bahamas remains above water. Both literally and figuratively. We refuse to take responsibility for our own actions. Every daily paper reports on this each and every day. Yet, we still cannot connect the dots.

There ain't no oil.

That’s a double negative which is a positive. We gonna be rich😁

Nothing but pie in the sky wishful thinking. Besides, every Bahamian knows the double negative "ain't no" is the stongest and most definitive outright "NO!" one could ever expect to hear in the Bahamian vernacular. LMAO

The problem with all of the initiatives listed by the editor is they will ALL follow the path of the gaming industry. If they find oil which block of Bahamians will be employed in large numbers to the high pay engineering jobs? Which block of Bahamians will have significant shares in the company? Which block of Bahamians will be given a dividend cheque monthly from the billions in profits?

If marijuana is legalized how many farms will be allowed to operate? How many dispensaries? How many millions will you need to qualify to start? Who is getting the head start with inside information? How many Bahamians will end up nothing more than happy mind dulled users?

If Amazon were allowed in Freeport guess what the jobs will be? Low paid factory workers

The game on these initiatives is rigged. The only avenues from which regular Bahamians in large blocks will benefit are entrepreneurship or education and from what I've seen the givt is doing enough in those areas to ensure that they can use their meagre efforts as campaign talking points. They bought ipads for school children. Great. what's the plan. They started the SBDC and for months touted the number of persons signed up, then kept opening offices everywhere inviting more people to sign up. last week they told us 78 out of 5000+ people got funding. The question is how is this any different from the 10 million put in UR?The companies are given 3 months of support..it's a recipe for being given just enough to get into trouble. Startups need operating capital. Who thought this program through before launching it? clearly no one.

What's the solution? I stick with education and that runs the gamut from learning to read, to plumbing to rocket science. Second, a Peoples Movement. If the govt is failing to offer the services we need to move forward then a Peoples Movement organizes, plans and executes to help our people. At this point having seen the "final solution- professionals" line up behind *tax them some more, but increase our salaries and give us new office space*, I do not believe any govt will ever move the country beyond 1965 outdoor toilets status. They need a majority struggling populace to maintain their oligarchy. let them have their titles, lets work on substance.

Totally concur with the education bit. Human capital can command the highest economic value if it is educated.

However, at this juncture, we could use a thousand warehouse jobs, just to lift the systemic unemployment out of the doldrums, and employ the level of human capital that we have.

You see Porcupine - this man knows his stuff.

THE ANSWER IS OIL !!

Quite scary actually. Shouldn't we wonder why we are so backwards, failing so miserably on so many metrics? How is it that a whole country can get it so wrong as we have? We just don't even let it bother us, do we? Is there a better example and recipe for failure, then continuing to think as we have? We just don't see it, do we?

Uh ... no, oil is *not* the answer, even if we had any. The price of oil is at historic lows when adjusted for inflation, and even Saudi Arabia — yes, SAUDI ARABIA — is looking forward to a future when they can no longer rely on their oil wealth as a nation. Fossil fuels are *not* the future.

OIL has created the Persian Gulf states ........ who have taken their oil fortunes and have invested in every known futuristic industry ..... Compare that with the corruption and dysfunction of Nigeria, Trinidad, and Venezuela where poor or shortsighted governance has wasted their oil fortunes.