Without a doubt he was being amazingly frank, but the question is whether he was being incredibly politically clever or whether he was being extraordinarily naiive and setting himself up to incur the wrath of the 670-odd employees and further entrench the bad mood that permeates the government corporation, with Bahamians catching the fallout.
It would be nice to think he had a plan in mind to either privatise the money-bleeding flier or gradually ease the government out of the airline business, ceding it to small independent services, with Bahamasair in a supervisory and administrative role. Would that it were so.
More likely, however, it was a bad bit of public and internal relations. We’re not in any way disputing the validity of the obvious: that the massively overstaffed airline is a basic staple of national humour; that its continual drain on the taxpayer is anything but laughable; and that dismantling Bahamasair in some fashion can only be a good thing.
We applaud his sentiment and candor but do question his timing.
Editorial, The Nassau Guardian
