On June 10th, 2005, the Coalition for Democratic Reform(CDR) issued a press release entitled “Local Government (Part 1) Nothing but a farce!” The position of the CDR is basically that Local Government as it currently exist is not working. The CDR feels that the failure of Local Government is due in part to the political agenda of the FNM who had introduced it and the PLP government that is now charged with the responsibility of maintaining it. Also, New Providence where ﾠtwo thirds of the population resides should be included as well. Considering the fact that ﾠthe CDR is also a political party, one can only speculate as to the motive of their press release criticizing Local Government.
As a little boy growing up in Acklins, I was aware of the fact that local government was defined as the periodic visit of an Out Island Commissioner. Sometimes, these visits could be just once a month or longer as the Commissioner had other jurisdictions and islands to look after. During such a visit, the business of government was conducted, with the Commissioner providing every thing from old age pension to payments for public works such as weeding the graveyard or fixing the roads. Basically, the Commissioner was dispatched from the nation’s Capitol of Nassau with an assigned task and specific directives as to how he was to conduct his business. He was accountable not to the local population that he was serving, but to his boss, the Department of Local Government which later became the Ministry of Local Government. With little discretion to deviate from his directives, the Commissioner had little authority to assist locals outside the scope of his duties unless he took his own personal initiative to assist in a particular matter.
To further complicate matters, the Member of Parliament for an Out Island constituency had vested in him the authority to veto any license application for business, taxi plates, government jobs, etc. Oftentimes as has been documented so often in the media, for your application to succeed, you had to be in the good grace of the MP. This created an abusive system of political patronage, nepotism, corruption and outright victimization. To be successful with your application, you literally had to kiss the ring (or the backside) of the MP.
This system was clearly evil and unjust. In addition, it did not take into account the concerns of the people most affected by such policies, the locals. That’s why one of (the) promises that a newly elected PLP government after Majority Rule on January 10th 1967 had promised was to implement a proper system of local government. To this end, in 1969, the PLP government of the day produced a green paper for public discussion as how to implement a system of local government. Regrettably, for the next twenty-three years, the PLP government of the day placed the issue of the implementation of a true system of local government on the back burner.
Finally, in 1996, under the FNM government, a system of local government was implemented. Under this scheme, those responsible for administrating local government had to be locally elected. Not only were they to be directly responsible to those who had elected them, but to be a candidate for ﾠLocal Government , one had to reside and be registered to vote in that constituency. Unlike the Member of Parliament who could reside in Nassau or elsewhere and be unavailable to his constituents or simply just “ducking” them, the elected Local Government official by residing in his constituency was available 24/7 to the public. Furthermore, such individuals should have been elected on the fact that they were caring and concerned individuals of that community. Therefore, there was an interest already established in the well being of the community.
There are those who believe that Local Government can be politically manipulated. In 1996 when there was the first local government election, the PLP applauded the fact that many of those elected were supporters of the PLP. They mistakenly believed that this was an indication of the political barometer. History revealed that in the pursuing General Election in 1997, the PLP suffered the worst defeat of any political party in a post-independence Bahamas. In Freeport in 1999, I campaigned for the team of Independent candidates against teams that were supported by both the FNM and the PLP. The victory for the Independent team was virtually unanimous as they soundly defeated the teams supported by both the FNM and the PLP by winning all the positions in Freeport.
However, despite the success in some areas of Local Government, the development of this new form of democratic process has not been without its growing pains. With such a new concept in governing the people’s affairs, it is reasonably expected that there will be challenges and that amendments would have to be made at appropriate times. If there were problems with the system, then those problems should have been addressed in a sensible and logical manner. The bad judgment or inappropriate actions of a few individuals should not be used, as an excuse to condemn the whole system, as I believe may be the justification of the CDR to change the whole system. When one looks at problems encountered by Local Government in places such as Harbour Island, Guana Cay, Bimini, Freeport, etc, we should be reminded that Local Government is much bigger than any one individual. Rather than hold the whole community hostage or to ransom, individuals who may find themselves in such a position should do the honorable thing and resign. The public that elected you should be the ultimate judge as to the fairness of your decisions with their support.
Finally, a fair critism of Local Government has been a lack of proper funding from the Central Government. Without the authority to raise its own funds, Local Government is at the mercy of the Central Government in this respect. Oftentimes, it comes up short of what was requested. This makes the balancing of the budget that much more difficult. With respect to New Providence that apparently now wants to be included in Local Government, if Local Government is such a good thing for the community, there is no reason as to why they should not be included. Few can argue that Local Government has not been a tremendous benefit to the communities in which they serve. Everything from Disaster preparedness to maintaining government buildings, school security, cultural and educational events, summer job programs, etc have all fallen under the umbrella of Local Government responsibility. These things are done in a more efficient, transparent and accountable manner then what was done prior to the implementation of Local Government. ﾠIf anything, the role of Local Government should be expanded.
Yours sincerely
Dr. Leatendore Percentie
Boston, Massachusetts
July 10th, 2005
