The attentive public is being promised albeit yet again- swift justice, better schools, an improved public health system, more effective policing, improved prison conditions, renovation of the Carmichael Road Detention Center, more parks for the children, more day care centers, better primary schools, clinics throughout the archipelago, a new and improved College of the Bahamas, enhanced security for the nationﾒs seaports and airports, outreach programs for troubled youth, aid for mothers and their children, more assistance to the nationﾒs elder citizens, and the list goes on.
All of these things cost real money.
Letﾒs be clear about one thing, which is to say that we have absolutely no problem with the tentative enumeration of all that has been promised. Indeed we venture that we could add a few items of our own to that already swollen list of ﾑthings to be doneﾒ in a Bahamas that is on the move and on the march.
That ﾖmercifully ﾖis not our objective.
Our purpose is far simpler, which is that we wish to make a simpler point, which is that no matter what any government promises, everything the public consumes brings with it a price tag. This means that whenever and wherever an authority decides or purposes to do something in the name of the public that ﾑsomething- itemﾒ must be paid for by some one.
As an old Bahamian saying puts it, ﾑyou get nothing for nothing and very little for your pennyﾒ. If you want it, you pay for it. And surely, if you did not pay much for it, be satisfied with whatever you get.
This then raises the question as to who will pay what, when and where for whatever they consume. It therefore follows as night does day that if the motoring public wants better road ways, they should be prepared to pay more by way of taxes. The same thing goes for schools and anything else people want to enjoy.
There are tens of thousands of Bahamians who seem to have a near endless capacity to accept and put up with lousiness, particularly when it comes from the public sector.
We are day in and day out appalled by stories that surface concerning the extent and ubiquity of collapse here, there and everywhere.
One day the breaking news is about the run-down state of some of the nation’s schools. On another there is again news about the extent to which Bahamians in one community or the other are living in squalor.
There is evidence galore to suggest that there are other egregious examples where Bahamians in public sector employ have been obliged to put up with conditions that are simply deplorable, where health and safety regulations are routinely flouted.
This state of affairs is inexcusable.
But it is also quite clear that things will continue to go from bad to worse so long as Bahamians continue to believe in the fantasy that you can get something for nothing.
Truth today is that as sure as night follows day, a day of reckoning is coming for The Bahamas and its people. Our reference here is to the coming of that day when right-thinking Bahamians will recognize that there is a price for everything they consume.
Strangely there are very many Bahamians who are apparently not exercised at all by what is happening. We suspect that this may be due to their deeply held belief that once you put the word ‘public’ in front of something, that ‘something’ is free.
This is precisely where the problem arises. As one administration after the other has taken its turn at the wheel, they have extended the reach of the Government. Trouble is that they have not expanded the tax base, thus the current fiscal crisis of the state in The Bahamas.
As a direct consequence of that crisis, ours is an environment where delay, neglect and decline seem to be the order of the day. Ours is a society where garbage is not collected on a timely basis, where electricity service is sporadic, where the public water supply is costly, and where telephone service is expensive and grossly inadequate.
These are attracting higher costs. The poor are paying more for these services. In addition there is mounting evidence to support the thesis that there are very many middle class Bahamians are living in a fantasy. These are the kinds of people who would want to believe that they could somehow continue to get by in their private worlds, places where they can and do live as if there was no tomorrow.
In the meanwhile, the truly rich are living it up, those in the middle are being crushed and those on the bottom are catching eternal hell. This is no way to run a country that calls itself a commonwealth.
The Bahama Journal
