The Editor
Bahamas Press
19 October 2021
Dear BP.
A scant month into the new PLP administration the nattering nabobs of negativism are in full attack mode. They are attacking every effort by the PLP to quickly correct the massive mess created by four and a half years of FNM maladministration.
Recall that these were the same persons who said nothing about the actions of the FNM and their ill-conceived programs, and profligate spending which has almost wrecked the Bahamas. In their world, the influx of illegal migrants was all the PLP s fault; the same goes for the increase in Covid-19 infections. Indeed, every ill affecting the country is the fault of the new administration they seem to claim.
Even the former Prime Minister who as the Competent Authority was the architect of our current disaster has weighed in with his worthless advice forgetting conveniently that he opened the economy last year against common sense and the advice of medical professionals; and engaged in what appears to have been economic sabotage as the FNM days in office dwindled.
In their final days, there were massive hirings, premature employment contract renewals, leases granted and just about everything done which could tie the hands and create frustration for the new administration. What the PLP administration has inherited may look like a poisoned chalice but that’s hyperbole. The expression “poisoned chalice” is often used in sports and politics to refer to a job or task given to someone. Initially, the person thinks he has been honored; he soon realizes however, that the job is in fact a burden and one that is likely to ruin his reputation”
Persons who read Bahamas Press would have appreciated the warning given as early as June 2021 and saw this disruptive strategy developing when they wrote. “We see based on their past and current actions, land leases, massive hiring of cronies and FNM devotees across government ministries, lucrative contracts for the boys and uncontrolled borrowings and spending, that the FNM intends to make our Bahamas ungovernable by a new administration. That demonic scheme is doomed to failure too”.
I suggest that this plan will fail because the underlying assumptions were based on false premises. For this plan to work the disruptive FNM operatives who have been place at the heart of government administration must stay in place; that’s not going to happen although the pace on these changes is glacial; that the PLP professionals and technocrats are not up to the task; this again is a false assumption; I would suggest that they are more than able and that this group represents the most concentrated grouping of our best and brightest in modern times and, behind them are massive intellectual resources as well; and there is finally in place strong, experienced and committed leadership to shepherd the Bahamas through these troubled times.
So, an FNM strategy that was clearly intended to frustrate the new administration and cause Bahamians even more stress, hopelessness and anxiety will be thwarted because there is a plan to deal with each of them. Sure, it may take longer to weed out these miscreants and scroats and they will continue to frustrate the government’s policy objectives until they are removed. But removed they will be, and good order will be preserved.
We Bahamians voted for a New Day and now we have it, but it is up to us to exercise the thoughtfulness, maturity and forbearance to make it a new day as well for generations yet unborn.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Brown
