By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net 

FORMER Prime Minister Perry Christie yesterday said he wants the government to take a more bipartisan approach in the decision-making process in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

He said “mistakes” are more likely to happen when all parties affected are not unified on policy decisions.

Mr Christie expressed his opinion to reporters yesterday when asked to respond to the government’s latest extension of the country’s COVID-19 Emergency Powers Order.

Mr Christie said his only advice to the Minnis-led administration was for officials to work together with the opposition and Bahamian public, adding that doing so could limit the chance of making bad decisions that have far-reaching consequences.

“You know, the comment I would give is this: that governments always make mistakes when they do not work hard to ensure there is unanimity in some areas at the political level,” the former PM said.

“The people are invariably the victims of any decision that the government makes if it is not a good decision and therefore, the government must always be mindful of the importance of working hard to ensure that they are at one with the opposition and one with civil society so people could understand what is taking place.”

The Bahamas has been under a state of emergency since Governor General C A Smith first issued a proclamation on March 18, shortly after the country recorded its first COVID-19 case.

That initial proclamation expired on June 29 after the government failed to bring a resolution in time to have it extended, but the situation was resolved after the Governor General swiftly issued a second proclamation.

In late November, a third proclamation was issued, allowing for the country’s state of emergency — and the competent authority’s associated emergency powers — to remain in effect for up to another six months unless revoked.

With such sweeping powers, Mr Christie said the government must ensure that all decisions made are not politically based, but rather data driven in order to effectively defeat the COVID-19 threat.

This comes as critics continue to question the rationale behind the government’s decisions on COVID-19 restrictions especially at a time when the country is seeing a downward trend of new cases.

“The most fundamental decision that the government must make is to be driven by science and not politics,” he stressed. “The decisions have to be evidence-based decisions and by that, I mean, that if you’re going to say ‘I’m going to close a store at six o clock,’ explain to me—and that store would normally close at nine—explain to me the science behind that decision.

“Do you know that those extra two hours would have some implication to health because the concern is health and to the point where you’re making decisions that would have sometimes terrible impacts on people.”

He also said: “You have to protect yourself as a government in letting people know that there are people around me and the competent authority happens to be the Prime Minister who happens to be a doctor who happens to be a specialist, so one can’t fault his experience as a doctor.

“But one can say, I would like to believe that there are persons in there who would be a taskforce who he would see as a taskforce and who would be leading the decision making and that’s what I think is important to the country.

“And it’s important that constructive criticism be accepted as constructive criticism as a country because there is one area where we must work hard as a country to be seen to be agreeing with each other when it comes to our health.

“We must work extra hard and I must say this to you young Bahamians in our country, to have a maturation process and matured approach to healthcare because it could be very, very negative impactful with negative consequences to people if they don’t have confidence in what is taking place and they would have confidence if they know ‘Brave’ Davis and Dr Minnis are at one on some areas in this matter because there must be more areas where they could work closely together.”

Progressive Liberal Party leader Phillip “Brave” Davis told reporters yesterday his party was still trying to understand the measures put in place by the government to limit the risk of infections now that the tourism sector is in another phase of reopening. This comes as COVID-19 cases are surging in the US – the country’s core tourism market.

To this, Mr Davis said: “We need to ensure that all of the protocols are in place to prevent what I call the spread and transmission of the virus so we have to also be careful that this opening is being done wisely and proper protocols are in place not just to protect the visitors but also the employees, who are in the (tourism) industry because when the employees leave the property, they’re going back into the community.

“We don’t want them to go back into the community and contaminate it nor do we want them to come out of the community and contaminate it so the government has to be very vigilant and ensure that proper protocols are in place to address these issues (that) arise.”

Asked if he felt proper protocols were in place, Mr Davis replied: “Well, we don’t know yet. From what we’re hearing, we’re trying to understand what the protocols are so we could assess whether they are proper or adequate.”