A lot still separates political parties

EDITOR, The Tribune.

On the very same day last week that Arthur Hanna, the lead architect of Bahamianisation, slipped into history, I had the dubious honour of meeting one of the Free National Movement’s batch of candidates for the upcoming election.

The meeting place was the BTC office in the Family Island constituency that she seeks to represent, and the occasion was her interruption of my lecture to a group of young Bahamians on how stark the difference between the two parties is in terms of the big issues facing Bahamians.

I was pointing out to the young Bahamians present that, when it came to power in 1992, Ingraham’s government (which I then enthusiastically supported, as a young, somewhat naïve person) damaged their prospects even before their birth by greatly easing the acquisition by foreigners of Bahamian land yet failing to ensure that commensurate benefits flowed to Bahamians from such a move.

I pointed out that, as a land attorney, I am aware that a solid proportion of the luxury homes now lining the coast of their island belong to foreigners who owe the government, collectively, many tens of millions of dollars in unpaid Real Property Tax bills– not to mention unpaid taxes for renting out their homes to other foreigners for often tens of thousands of dollars weekly.

In fact, just one foreign owner owes more than $8 million in Real Property Tax, having not paid a dime since acquiring the properties more than a decade ago. This is publicly available information, yet few FNM politicians deem it worthy of public discussion, even as they stress our supposed inability to fund universal healthcare or their need to borrow billions to run the country – billions that are then paid back by taxes on the poor (on their food, clothes, gas and other daily necessities).

Finally, I was pointing out to the young Bahamians that, at this very moment, a rags-to-riches Bahamian businessman in Nassau is being prosecuted by the Treasurer for non-payment of Real Property Taxes and having his property on Bay Street taken away. Yet there is not one single case of any of the hundreds of foreigners who have abused the privilege of owning luxury property on their island ever being subject to such an eventuality. This is not an oversight. It is FNM policy.

It was at that point that the FNM candidate chimed in. Claiming ignorance of the abuse of Real Property Taxes by foreigners on the island she seeks to represent, or of her government’s discriminatory enforcement policy against Bahamians, she instead turned the question around to ask what the PLP had done for Bahamians.

That question was, of course, a gift. While I conceded that the PLP’s biggest failure was not to have reversed the FNM’s most harmful policies, I easily demonstrated that, in terms of tangible benefits to the masses of Bahamians, there remains no comparison between the parties by reference either to their historical record or the present day.

Having no cogent response to my long list of institutions, laws and protections for Bahamians that enabled the PLP to create, grow and sustain the Bahamian middle class (and which the FNM has chipped away at every time they got in power, with predictable results for that middle class), she turned away with the parting comment “anyway, the PLP didn’t introduce National Insurance, that was Sir Randol Fawkes”!

I am told that the candidate in question is an educator. If she teaches history, this country’s in trouble.

ANDREW ALLEN

Nassau,

August 8, 2021

Comments

mandela says...

She is a dumb A$$, that is exactly the reason Bahamian history needs to be added to the school curriculum, the funny part is that she is not alone.

Posted 10 August 2021, 8:39 a.m. Suggest removal

birdiestrachan says...

The big difference is the PLP created the middle class the FNM destroyed the middle class/

All that has made the Bahamas great is PLP. University of the Bahamas. National Insurance. BAMSI URBAN renewal and the list goes one.

The FNM philosophy is to make the rich richer and the poor who cares.

Note the post office deal. the shipping port. and the cruise port.

The FNM has done nothing Zero to improve health care. As far as the future goes they are concered about their future .their salaries. their free cars, their chauffers.

Posted 10 August 2021, 2:47 p.m. Suggest removal

realityisnotPC says...

So much rage. So much hatred for foreigners. Such a shame. Imagine the vitriol that would spew forth from Andrew Allen's quiver if someone in another country were to voice such vicious sentiments against Bahamians, cloaking it in the disguise of a righteous battle for equality. Every single time he writes to the editor...same regurgitated hatred, vomited up in a different pattern.

Posted 10 August 2021, 4:57 p.m. Suggest removal

themessenger says...

Yes, as evidenced from his own verbiage he does a lot of finger pointing, " I was pointing out, I was pointing out, I pointed out, it was at that point,"
What exactly is your point?

Posted 11 August 2021, 2:51 p.m. Suggest removal

lordcharlemain says...

So much hate for the outlanders, the writer of this arcticle argues that a someone from another country must paid hes unpaid property taxes now! Meanwhile a Bahamian who did not pay for 40 years needs to get a break? Are you insane? Everyone needs to pay the property tax in a manner that they can ( without destroying bahamian businesses that are hit by covid ). Payment plans need to be set up work needs to be done. Where the Bahamas can make the most money is not property tax, but by downsizing its epic sized government. In my believe about 20 % of the Bahamians work for the government and are sucking the other 80 % dry, what the Bahamas really needs is a smaller government. You do not receive any government benefits here anyways like you would in first world countries. In other countries the government pays for all the health care of its citizens thats why they have a tax system, but the bahamas provides none of that, but still has steep taxes....

Posted 26 August 2021, 7:49 p.m. Suggest removal

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