The government said it would not permit exploratory oil drilling in our waters without a referendum. Now Sunday, the government through its Environment Minister has announced that it will allow this drilling without the consent of the Bahamian people.
This is because the government never intended to ask the Bahamian people a thing before permitting oil drilling – it was a lie when they said it, and they said it because they felt it was what the Bahamian people would have wanted to hear at the time.
But the fact of the matter is that the government was already personally invested, from the Prime Minister down the line, in the company (Bahamas Petroleum Company) that plans to drill for oil in our waters from the time they were in Opposition. So they never intended to do anything other than protect and boost their interests in this regard.
If current members of the Opposition or other political leaders are shareholders in the Bahamas Petroleum Company they should say so now on their own, rather than it being made public without their disclosing this themselves – because it is now time for the Bahamian people to see exactly how deep this potential disaster for The Bahamas runs, and just who is personally vested in the planned selling out of the Bahamian people.
Incidentally – the referendum lie with respect to oil drilling is the same type of lie that was told to us regarding numbers houses, in that a referendum is not needed for the government to go ahead and do what it wants to do with either of the two.
They dumbed-down the population and threw around that word “referendum” as though it was a brand new construct they created, all to paint themselves as a “consultative” government. It was lies that they ought not have been able to get away with 40 years into the nationhood of The Bahamas, but it sadly appears that after 40 years (a generation) we still are found by our politicians to be a people far too easy to successfully lie to.
The Bahamian people have elected a group of people who are unafraid of the citizenry, and are now so comfortable in their seat of power that they are not even behaving like politicians who plan to come back to the people for a new mandate. They are behaving as persons who never expect to be removed from office again – and are therefore boldly telling the Bahamian people “we don’t care what we promised you, we are in now, and we are gonna do what we want to do whether you like it or not.”
And at this point, I am beginning to wonder whether we as Bahamians actually do like it, because we are not yet behaving like people who won’t take it anymore.
When we lose our waters and coastlines, we have nothing else. If that is not enough to awaken the many thousands of us who still do not appear to be tired of the very real threats our government is posing to our livelihood and future – I do not know what is or what will be.
And since the government never met a lie it did not love, it won’t tell the Bahamian people that an oil spill does not need to happen to ruin our ecosystem – the chemicals used in the drilling process alone are dangerous to our reefs and sea life.
Meantime – where is the FNM? This country is about to be sold out – where are the elected and appointed officials who are truly about this country and its people as opposed to political personalities? Where is the DNA? Bahamians are asking “what can we do”? Where are the people who are dying to lead this country in a few years? Is there anyone left who is about country as opposed to fulfilling personal ambitions?
Sharon Turner
