“Leprechauns are said to have descended from an evil spirit and a renegade Fairy, which accounts for a mixed nature: merry and generous one minute, crabby and mischievous the next. Their unpredictability makes them even harder to pin down.”
DNA leader Bran McCartney says, “The last thing Grand Bahama needs is another slate of empty promises.”
Yet, that is exacty what he did at a Grand Bahama street meeting in the Les Fountains Plaza last Friday night. He served up a heaping slate of empty promises.
Let’s hope the good people of Grand Bahama aren’t naive enough to believe that Mr McCartney is doing anything but spouting political rhetoric. Or that the DNA can deliver even a fraction of the things McCartney is promising.
“The political rhetoric won’t pay your school fees, put food on the table and keep you employed,” Mr McCartney cautions voters as he heaps on the rhetoric.
Mr McCartney’s ideas, even if well intended, are ridiculous considering that they would cost millions of dollars, and he is already complaining about how the FNM has spent too much money.
How would a DNA government get the money to pay for all those promises? Borrow it? Bran says the FNM has borrowed too much already.
Bran promises to restructure arrangements with the Hutchison group, but the Chinese conglomerate doesn’t know about that yet.
He says he will reduce landing fees to allow more commercial airlines to come to Grand Bahama, but doesn’t realize that it is lack of demand, not seats, that is hurting Grand Bahama tourism.
Bran says he will amend the Port Act so that residents are beneficiaries of the relationship and to lower energy cost for residents. But the Grand Bahama Port Authority hasn’t agreed to any of that.
He says that the FNM are clueless as to understanding the dynamics of your economy, but that’s what happens when you get a lawyer to play economist,” McCartney said. But then, Mr McCartney is a lawyer and that’s just what he’s trying to do… play economist.
Mr McCartney promises to expand the island’s industrial base, strengthen the tourism product island wide and reopen the West End Airport. He fails to mention how he would accomplish any of this, or how he would get the money to fund such initiatives.
He says he intends to create an industrial park/manufacturing environment for wind turbines, solar panels and the like where international business is transacted and unskilled Bahamians can be trained while earning attractive wages. Wouldn’t that require some international businesses? Where do they come from? Are international companies going to flock to the Bahamas because “Bran’s the man?”
Not only does Bran fail to mention how his government would pay for any of this, he is also promising to extend tax concessions presently enjoyed by licensees of the Port to the entire island for a period of time. So there would be even less money to work with than there is now.
It is so easy to get people liquored up at a rally and spout off all the great things you are going to do for them. To deliver on those promises is another thing entirely.
