Dear Editor,
It’s amazing how our politicians allow all of these different companies to come into The Bahamas and allow them to do whatever they want. The minimum wage act allows them to pay Bahamians nothing or next to nothing. It’s like the laws are made to ensure that the Bahamian people are kept down.
Our politicians don’t really care about us because they make 60 to 80 thousand dollars a year plus benefits and the (many) poor Bahamians can’t even make 10 thousand at the end of the year. It’s the same, year after year, even as gas, food, electricity etc. continue to rise. If I did not know better it feels like our politicians and the business people are on the same page, and they will do anything to allow businesses to come into The Bahamas even if it hurts or eventually kills the Bahamian people.
The minimum wage act is like a death sentence for most Bahamians. Here is how to look at it.
Imagine if the population in The Bahamas was 350,000, and about 50,000 of those people are doing well, but 300,000 are affected by the act. So, you have a nation of people working for 7,800.00 a year which in most counties in the free world, is below the poverty level pay. Everything is more important to our politicians than addressing the poor Bahamian issues. It feels to me like everything in the cost of living can go up but when it comes to us getting more money, it’s a problem.
It’s nice to see Freeport and The Bahamas growing but I don’t feel the people are growing along with it as far as pay is concerned.
It’s OK for everything cost-wise to increase, but not the people’s salaries. Why is everybody so set on Bahamians not making money. If you look at it, most of the crimes are because people are not making enough money to live on.
~ Concerned Citizen.
