If In Seven Months Things Can Be This Wrong, In Seven Months Things Could Have Been Done Right
Supporters of the governing Party like to say to critics “the government has just gotten in, you’ve got to give them some time before you critique them on their performance – Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
Fair enough. But here is the question though – why does the government need to be given much more time to do what’s right and good, when it has clearly wasted no time at all in causing a mess in numerous government ministries and agencies?
We can support whatever we choose in terms of political parties and the politicians connected to them, but facts do not change simply because we choose to ignore them, spin them or act as though they do not exist at all.
- How many Bahamians, through a direct act of government, have seen their employment status switch from working to jobless since May 7, 2012?
- How many ministers of the government have so far been sued for alleged theft or otherwise alleged inappropriate business dealings related to substantial sums of money since or prior to May 7, 2012?
- How many government MPs and/or Ministers have been caught up in conflict of interest controversies since May 7, 2012?
- After only seven months in – how much money has been spent by the government; money that has already exceeded budgetary allocations for 2012/2013 or was not budgeted for at all?
- And how many times has the Prime Minister, in each and every one of these cases, either failed to act, refused to act, or acted like he knew absolutely nothing about what is going on in his country, his government or his Cabinet?
If seven months has been enough time to go so very wrong, it has been enough time for the government to make good on at least some of its critical promises made to the Bahamian people, not the least of which being DPM Brave Davis’ promise that the government would provide 10,000 “immediate jobs” for Bahamians once elected.
We’ve seen government retirees – some in the case of the Police Force as one example who have been retired for as much as 20 years – be given immediate full-time jobs of rank (while still also collecting their pension), but where are the immediate jobs for those in need of employment?
Amazing isn’t it? Twenty year olds and the like all over this country are looking for work, but the Government is spending huge sums of money re-hiring retirees who stopped working, in some cases, 20 years ago.
Sharon Turner
