I'm all for asking for help from the international community in the wake of disasters and pandemics but,
at what point do we look within and realize it is our own lack of planning and decent funding for
medical care and disaster response that has us hat in hand to begin with?
We have a NEMA act already amended to over come repeated ineptitude, and still don't have an operational manual.
Each new storm finds a new cadre of Government and political Appointees with no clue of how to get things done on the ground.
No experience. And no manual which is critical if there is no first hand experience.

Good points. There are a number of very experienced and highly qualified personnel but the system is having to work with as you pointed out "new cadre of Government and political Appointees" The Unit must have powers to effect fast effective checks, controls mechanism to stop fraud, tieffing, inept inexperienced workers who waste time, money, materials, materials control incl shingles, inevitable line jumpers, cohorts, cheats, crooks, political influences derailing flow etc., On the operational manual absent, there is always one to fit the situation but question is, who would you want to deal with without checks and controls etc in a system....another political appointee. Lol. Fully independent professionals with full powers needed.

no one is ever independent. i do appreciate your idealism tremendously though

Quit talking fool!
Where is this “number of very experienced and highly qualified personnel “????

You’re full of BS!

Myself and all the other businessmen I know can’t seem to find even one.

And where do you suggest these “highly qualified personnel “ for their experience?

Foolish talk.

We have to admit the problem if we’re ever to address and possibly resolve it.

We have a huge shortage of qualified and experienced people.

Facts are facts.

We have never done these things before, it’s just not possible that we have experienced people.

We are a D average nation. At best, most who make it to secondary education fake their way through.

@ DWW. The nation has the qualified professionals but there are many who have polite reasons to decline ....to have affiliations with these projects. These projects, businesses, consultantancies will have vacancies for professionals but given toxic environment, it is better to go in the opposite direction. Professionals have a say with whom they work for and affiliated with and go in opposite direction from toxic situations and this is a part of the challenges nation aspirations to build face.

Even incoming NGO's have to be taught the ropes, and cannot believe half of what they meet.
On checks and controls, one very defined and repeated phenomenon is the total walk back by most if not all Government departments initially, Customs, Immigration, RBPF and RBDF,
which lasts from 4-6 weeks. 6 Weeks in Dorian. They simply don't know what to do. So they stand back, literally. They facilitate. They want direction which doesn't come fast enough.
One day beyond that period the over control comes back, and hard. You can literally sense it, accompanied by conflicting rules, policies, and confiscations of relief goods.
And generators start disappearing.
the worst part of all are the political edicts that come with no operational guidance.
Individual officers can be great, or can be horrible. An operational manual is required.

truly, very well stated.

“Hence the compelling question remains, as to why middle-income countries are still being assessed by international financial institutions using outdated methodologies that give no consideration to a country’s level of exposure, vulnerability and ability to recover from exogenous shocks.”

The current methodologies CORRECTLY rate The Bahamas in accordance with our exposure, vulnerability and ability to recover from weather and economic shocks. We are highly exposed, highly vulnerable and have limited ability to recover. That is all taken into account in our current sovereign credit rating. I am not sure what point the PM is trying to make.

When you see how some of the richest, most powerful nations in the world are fumbling trying to fight the Corona pandemic. Despite all their resources they are faring worse than the smaller, third world nations. And the US seems to have its hands extra, extra full, having 1/3 of the corona cases in the world, an extremely high incidence of corona deaths and no seemingly United Force on how to battle this pandemic and win. And the US is not use to fighting battles on the home soil. And, in addition to the Corona pandemic, this country has been hit by several hurricanes and is battling a raging fire on its west cost, that seems to be getting more fierce and more deadly every year. So how can countries, lathe Bahamas, put itself in better position to do for and defend itself as countries, like an America May have to use most of its resources and manpower to fight its own battles?

These Bahamian Politicians are like children and too many people around here think they are entitled to get free handouts for life-based on some BS. Gov. fantasy that 'foreigners' don't have any other option in life but to subsidize our lazy as.. for suck teeth. 50 (+) years of independence and successive populist politicians have helped themselves to the cookie jar without a thought for anyone else or the future of this country. Our infrastructure is in tatters, there is virtually no primary or secondary industry. The banking sector has fallen off a cliff and the only reason we get any tourists coming to our overpriced, underperforming sector of the Caribbean is because we are only 30 minutes away from Miami. Successive governments have printed and borrowed money like there is no tomorrow and the vast majority of it has gone unaccounted for.....but booooohooooo..... the united nations don't understand that its all the hurricanes fault. In the meantime. Some grown-up politicians in the region looked at all of this communist covid hysteria and admitted to their people that it was not financially viable to lock down and educated their population on how to keep the economy functioning safely. Not our bone heads. In spite of countless warnings and downgrades in recent years, the entire cadre of Bahamian Politicians believed we could somehow just play with the big kids and then what....go crying to mummy afterwards..... Wow!