Six year old and nine year old children found in deplorable conditions having to be looking into garbage cans for food to survive obviously needs a more efficient better way to not having the nations children to be seeking food out of garbage cans.

More public funds obviously needed to go into alternative Charities to directly assisting critical needy people in grinding poverty on the streets than funding the politicians costs of free campaign tee shirts !!!!!

Isn't that nice? Millions of dollars are wasted every year due to government contracts and projects that are never completed. Thousands of unqualified civil servants are paid by the public just because you want the votes. More Bahamians than you know are struggling to make ends meet. And now you want the public to finance your election campaigns too

This man can't be serious. I used to think he was a smart, sensible guy, then he became PM and holy wow. I couldn't have been more wrong.

... how about 2 terms for politicians with no pension thereafter.
How about cutting the PM's pension in half?
How about only allowing any living person to only collect one pension from the government, so that a person is not getting a pension as a former PM's wife and one as a former Governor General for instance?

How about politicians making suggestions that will reduce the pressure on the public purse??

Hard Objection: Public Funds for Political Parties Is an Insult to the Bahamian People

It is beyond audacious for Dr. Hubert Minnis—or any member of this political elite—to suggest that Bahamian taxpayers should now subsidize the very same political parties that have driven this country into economic stagnation, moral bankruptcy, and institutional rot. The gall of such a proposal is staggering.

> Dr. Minnis and his peers dare to cite
> countries like Sweden, Canada, and
> Australia, invoking the prestige of
> these well-governed nations as if the
> Bahamas bears any meaningful
> resemblance to them in terms of public
> accountability, transparency, or
> service delivery. Let’s be clear:
> those countries have functioning
> public healthcare systems, reliable
> education infrastructure, efficient
> transportation networks, and leaders
> who resign when they lie. The Bahamas
> has none of these things. Not even
> close.

So no—we will not be gaslit into funding political parties under the false pretense of “campaign finance reform” while our clinics are under-equipped, roads potholed, schools failing, and violent crime spirals. It is an insult to every struggling Bahamian family to even float this nonsense while asking nothing of the corrupt financiers and shady donors who have long held our political system hostage.

This isn't reform—it's political welfare, a brazen attempt to institutionalize dependency and protect a parasitic class from the wrath of a public they have deceived for decades. The idea that parties should get a quarter-million-dollar subsidy to build museums and pay staff while civil servants go without raises and children sit in classrooms with broken desks is a grotesque mockery of national priorities.

Let us not forget: both Minnis and Davis have publicly acknowledged that the campaign finance system is broken—and then did nothing. Every prime minister since independence has used campaign financing as a rhetorical tool, only to abandon it the moment it threatened their access to unchecked political capital. These promises are not just empty—they are deliberately deceptive, designed to pacify the electorate while keeping power consolidated in the hands of the same cliques.

So no, Dr. Minnis, your recycled proposal—offered without limits, without guarantees of transparency, and without a single tangible reform to how parties are held accountable—is not welcome. You want reform? Start by exposing every donor who financed your last campaign, open the books of your party, and demand real-time disclosures of political contributions. Only then can you dare to approach the public purse.

Until then, do not speak of subsidies. The people of this country are subsidizing enough corruption as it is.

--- Jimmy Lee Swaggart (March 15, 1935 – July 1, 2025) ---- "Jimmy Gone Home" ---   https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lGzR7ieb…

On the contrary good people, I would maintain that all political parties should be 100% publicly funded.
Anyone, or any entity, giving any politician ANY money at all would be subject to life in prison.
While I agree with the present distaste for doing anything to encourage the present group of gangsters who are undoubtedly destroying The Bahamas, I find the current way of campaign finance to be part and parcel of the degradation of supposed leadership in this country.
I believe, that we need a complete and radical revolution of values which will turn this country around. Nipping at the edges just won't do.
We saw what happened in the US with the Citizen United case as ruled on by their Supreme Court. The ruling class was entirely captured by the billionaire class.
Is this where we are heading here? Read the recent Tribune articles, hint, hint.
From my point of view, there should be NO private money in politics. Nobody gives money to a political party without expecting something in return.
We still have in this country, political operatives who hand out cash to voters near the voting stations. Does this help our beloved Bahamas?
We need to change the whole flipping system. And, get rid of the entire present political class.
Are they are not pulling these treasonous shenanigans right in front of our face?
Sorry to disagree, but until we have fully funded public political campaigns we will continue to get the crap for leadership similar to that currently in place.
We concurrently need a more informed populace and greater incentives for our youth to stay home.
The present political apparatus is poisoning this country from top to bottom. Not only are they mismanaging our financial, natural, and human resources, they are making it impossible for our kids who go off and get educated to come home to a level playing field.
We have for a few generations now, continued to hire people for our government jobs according to WHO they know and are related to, rather than to hire people who are educated, qualified, competent, honest and hard working.
Do we not think this has also contributed to the continued degradation of our social fabric? The daily murders, the epidemic of NCD diseases, increasing crime, collapsing infrastructure, rising inflation, low wages.....
Does anyone really see things getting better anytime soon?
And, we still don't see that just as the bible says, the love of money is at the root of all evil?
Keep letting the millionaires and the billionaires have a say in politics and you are expecting a change?
LOL

I can respect and support much of your view. But let me be equally direct: the Bahamian people have carried the financial and moral burden of a class of worthless politicians for far too long. These men and women enter politics not to serve, but to enrich themselves—living off the backs of taxpayers for five years, contributing nothing of substance, and walking away with the spoils of office and a lifelong pension. For what? For speeches and scandals? For photo ops and failures?

Now we’re being told that not only must we tolerate their mediocrity—we must fund their campaigns as well? Absolutely not. That is a step too far. To ask the Bahamian people to foot the bill for the entry of these career politicians into a life of privilege and luxury is a cruel joke at our expense.

And let’s not pretend public funding would magically fix this system. The cronyism will continue. The political favours will persist. And the elite will still protect their own. The entire structure needs radical change—not just campaign financing.

Here is a solution worth serious consideration: separate the executive branch from the civil service. Take political hands off the machinery of government. Let the public service be run under private sector discipline, through strict management agreements, with clear performance benchmarks and full accountability to an independent, publicly elected oversight body. Only then can we eliminate the entrenched culture of nepotism, political interference, and deadweight that plagues our institutions.

We must shift from loyalty to party, to loyalty to country. From bloated bureaucracies filled with “who you know,” to lean, efficient systems run by “who is best qualified.” And above all—we must rid ourselves of the mindset among politicians who believe that governing is a favour to the Bahamian people, that their “service” is unquestionable, and that they are somehow above reproach or unreachable by those who put them in office. That arrogance is not leadership. It is parasitism wrapped in entitlement.

Until we dismantle that entire culture, the youth will flee, the institutions will erode, and our future will continue to be traded away—piece by piece—by people unfit to hold office.

Get going with an often suggested national lottery where the funds would sponsor worthwhile endeavours rather than fattening the pockets of gaming house owners.

If there were a genuine effort to disclose the shareholders behind the local number houses, the public would quickly understand why such transparency will never be pursued under the two so-called political parties in the Bahamas—parties that, for all their theatrics, function as one when it comes to protecting entrenched interests.

Ok Warrior,
You say, "And let’s not pretend public funding would magically fix this system. The cronyism will continue. The political favours will persist. And the elite will still protect their own. The entire structure needs radical change—not just campaign financing."
What does "radical" mean to you?
Are we capable of a radical change? Any one of us?
Best bet, bring in foreigners to administrate the nation.
We've already admitted that the cronyism and corruption run too deep.
Have we lost our imagination for what is required for a decent country?
Are we all part of the problem now?
We have gotten to where we are, despite the system we have, or because of it?
See, the problem we really have is that we call ourselves Christians, but no few Christian values.
Accepting, even cheer leading for Capitalism also helps destroy any notion of Christian values and democratic mores.
I know we have a long way to go.
The truth tellers will always be the first to get crucified. Always.

You and IslandWarrior should be joined in matrimony. lol