EDITOR, The Tribune.

As 2023 is heading towards its end, I truly wonder whether there is any hope that 2024 will bring Bahamians much-needed relief.

During November, it was particularly frustrating trying to deal with utility services and banks. I reached the limit of my patience once again, and unfortunately I know I am not alone! The mind boggles when constant and continuous inefficiency from “service” providers causes Bahamian businesses - their customers who are paying for a service that seems to be non-existent - to waste valuable time and energy dealing with untrained and uncaring representatives from these companies who plain and simple are not doing their jobs!

This is a pathetic state of affairs in this country that continues to block our progress, and it is a mirror image of our lousy leadership from both sides of the aisle who continue to allow patronage, slackness, and mediocrity to rule the nation and lead us nowhere fast!

How can we function if, when a thunderstorm comes, the potholes turn into craters, the electricity goes off, the internet gets zapped, the phone lines don’t work, the credit card machine can’t work, and maybe you would do well to put your buckets out to collect some of the rain that’s falling in case the water goes out too!

The banks continue to hold us hostage. They have closed so many branches on the Family Islands and in Nassau, and the ones that remain open have reduced staff for counter service, if at all. These same banks encourage their customers to bank digitally and are charging ridiculous fees for the service, yet it takes forever to complete the paperwork to open an account, or over six weeks to get your account online, or the ATM machines don‘t work, nobody answers the phones, or there are no properly trained staff members to attend to your issues. I guess we should be thankful for small mercies since the Central Bank’s decision to do away with paper cheques at the end of 2024 has been rescinded.

Whilst our “leaders” sing praises about reaching an eight-million visitors mark, and brag about all of the new foreign direct investment projects coming off the drawing board to save our country, we, the people, can’t get utilities to work in spite of the regulatory bodies formed to do just that! How can “da gubment dem” encourage more development when the basic infrastructure doesn’t even work properly? As my dear friend, Patricia Glinton Meicholas, uses as an example of basic common sense: How can you make a sandwich when you ain’ gat no bread or filling, only condiments like mustard and ketchup?

We citizens, customers, consumers, and taxpayers deserve better and must demand better!

I continue to talk to deaf ears about “overtourism” which the Cambridge Dictionary describes as: “the situation when too many people visit a place on holiday, so that the place is spoiled and life is made difficult for the people who live there … Giant cruise ships are a contributing factor when it comes to overtourism.”

Why can’t we see this happening right in front of our eyes, especially in the Family Islands? Giant resorts - same formula over and over: dredge the seabed for docks and harbours, mow down the native forest and coppice, and dig up the mangroves for inappropriate overscaled residential buildings for visitors that do not reflect a sense of place.

Who truly benefits from these escapades?

Meanwhile, how many Bahamians can afford to buy land in their own country anymore, and how many houses are being built for Bahamians? What would the Ministry of Works records show in relation to what percentage of construction being done in the country is by Bahamians for Bahamians? The other day there were even some foreign architects living in the Family Islands happily marketing their design services to ‘foreign’ and planning to build homes for them to come and take up residence!

Another scathing example is negatively affecting the residents in Adelaide (whose MP is the Minister of the Environment) who have been crying out for weeks for relief from 24/7 construction and destruction taking place in their heretofore quiet community as huge tractors rip up the mangroves and tear down the pine forests and pollute our water tables for the purposes of ‘development’. These very actions are the harbingers of the climate disasters our Prime Minister is railing against all around the world, yet allowing to happen in his own country!

Other developers are planning to build huge inappropriate over scaled nine and ten storey residential towers in regulated residential communities. It is unconscionable that the voices of Bahamians are ignored whilst “foreign” can come into our country and do whatever they want!

Who in authority is checking for the wellbeing of Bahamians whilst these abuses take place? Is there any small wonder that the Freedom of Information legislation isn’t operational yet?

We do not need more and we do not need bigger, we simply need better for our own selves!

Open your eyes Bahamians, and speak up because “piratis” have not been “expulsis!” Happy holidays!

PAM BURNSIDE

New Providence

December 12, 2023