Bahamians have become so accustomed to the information that Bahamasair is a money-hog that practically no one reacts anymore to reports that more money is being lost on the national flag carrier.
Last Wednesday, the Hon. Bradley Roberts reported that Bahamasair has lost $86 million over a three-year period, 2000 – 2001 and 2002. He, it was reported, attributed the overall losses to a number of factors, inclusive of staff and consultants’ salaries; high maintenance requirements; wet leases of foreign owned and operated aircraft; hush-kits; interests and penalty costs and increased insurance premiums.
While the minister did not include the item, there is an abundance of evidence to suggest that in addition to these tangibles must be added another issue which is perhaps as crucial, namely a corporate culture which tolerates slackness and inefficiency. This has already cost the Bahamian people most dearly. Indeed, it would not be too far-fetched to suggest that Bahamasair’s multiplicity of woes and failures is directly tied to many of this nation’s other ills. When a government feels that it is obliged to subsidise a particular project, others go under-funded and inadequately resourced. Luckily, The Bahamas has been able to absorb the costs of Bahamasair, always on the hope that somehow things would turn around.
While successive governments could – in good times – hope against hope that the national airline could be turned around, the ‘new’ Progressive Liberal Party has apparently been fated to be the one which will finally be forced ‘to bite the ballet’ and break with a past pattern of waste, fraud, inefficiency and corruption. And, to make matters even worse, there are persistent reports concerning the extent to which crooked employees of the national airline have corrupted themselves by trying to smuggle cocaine and other contraband into the United States of America.
While this is a pernicious side issue, it does bear some tangential relationship to the larger issue of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The flag carrier cannot ever hope to get out from under if some of its paid employees undermine it from within.
The truth, today, is that Prime Minister, the Hon. Perry G. Christie and his team have to do what is right by Bahamasair and the Bahamian people. They must – as a matter of the most urgent priority – generate a strategic plan for Bahamasair, share it with the public and get on with the business of its implementation. In order to do this effectively and efficiently, they must sweep away tired and superfluous arguments about why the government should subsidize the airline simply because of the perception that this is how it must be in an archipelagic nation.
While we agree with the proposition that there are routes which must be underwritten by government subsidy, it surely does not follow that the government should not do its best to get the best value for money. No one in his right mind would dare suggest that this has, to date, been the case.
While it is true that this nation’s cultural integrity and national viability both require government support for Bahamasair, the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas and inter-insular shipping, it does not follow that these should be wasteful, fraud-filled and inefficient. As such, they would undermine the national development project.
In the specific instance of Bahamasair, the Christie government would be well advised to continue their efforts to ‘downsize’ the flag carrier, but should be wary of plans and stratagems which are nothing more than illusions. Take for example, the problem which arises when an inefficient, low performing and ill-prepared worker is transferred form Bahamasair and is salted away in some other government sinecure. The public would thus still be obliged to carry the full weight of waste, fraud and inefficiency.
Based on this admittedly worse case scenario, we suggest that the government move with speed, caution and the utmost deliberation to craft a strategy and plan for Bahamasair which would spell out how the national flag carrier can become more efficient, and perhaps even make money.
We believe that the national flag carrier can be made efficient. We believe, too, that it can run a profit on certain routes. We are also convinced that this and more can be achieved if government was truly committed to ‘thinking outside the box’, as many members of the ‘new’ Progressive Liberal Party boast they do. The time for real action is now.
Editorial, The Bahama Journal
