January 18, 2005
The Bahamas Government's Legendary Incompetence
The Bahamas is a Third World country, so one takes all the little inconveniences of living there with a grain of salt. Things, that people in developed countries take for granted, are luxuries in the Bahamas, sometimes available only at the big hotels or to government officials and their families.
But water should not be a luxury. Water is a necessity that only the poorest, most economically blighted governments on earth can not provide for their citizens. That's why it is so hard to understand why the Bahamas government can not provide an adequate water supply to the hundreds of thousands of citizens in Nassau, the capital of the island nation. Nassau is located on New Providence Island, a body of land that is of course, surrounded by... well, er... water.
Yet, a group of incompetents (many say they are nothing but criminals) have taken over the government of the Bahamas and are so busy making selfish deals, laundering money, smuggling Chinese and Haitian immigrants and smuggling drugs, they can't seem to take care of the basic business of managing a nation, even one as small as The Commonwealth of The Bahamas.
Money is no problem. The Bahamas governments' billion dollar a year budget gives them the same amount to spend, per capita, that the United States has for their citizens. But in the Bahamas, the government ministers and cabinet members squander and steal the money from the public treasury by creating special construction, real estate and business deals for their cronies. One MP recently rented a building he owns to the government phone company at three times the going rate. Another was involved in a Korean fishing boat scam that cost the country over a hundred thousand dollars. Another Cabinet Minister was involved in a shady deal with a Canadian bleacher company that saw over one million dollars disappear. Some of that money allegedly found its way into the minister's pocket. Recently, a government insider has accused certain Cabinet ministers of benefiting financially in an approval process related to natural gas storage facilities and pipelines, to be built in Grand Bahama.
Then there are the useless junkets, conferences and events around the globe that Bahamian government officials tell the citizenry is necessary for them to attend. This excuse allows some expensive vacations for the ministers and their families. Not a week goes by that one particular minister, charged with foreign affairs, isn't running off to some exotic location for a meeting that he contributes little or nothing to, and benefits the Bahamian people in no way at all. Trips to China, Africa, all points in the Caribbean, the United States, Europe and Asia have taken place thus far. All by a government that is basically insignificant in the course of world affairs.
Recently, the Bahamas government announced they would send a delegation to the region affected by the Tsunami. When asked what they could contribute, given the Bahamas' limited resources, the cabinet minister thought for a minute then said they would offer "moral support, which is always needed."
Why, an educated person might ask, would Bahamian citizens not speak out against this type of corruption and incompetence? Because the majority of Bahamians know nothing about it. With an adult voting population of over 140,000 people, less than 20,000 read the daily papers and even fewer than that have online access. Sure, the Bahamas boasts of a higher than normal computer/person ratio, but most of those computers are in the offices of offshore banks and government buildings. The truth is, less than 20% of the adult voting population have Internet access.
So, the citizens of Nassau enter the third month of water rationing and other unnecessary frustrations while their incompetent and corrupt leaders line their pockets with graft. As one message board participant said, after a cabinet minister was recently accused of rape for which the Bahamas government decided against pressing charges, "The beat goes on...".
Posted by admin at January 18, 2005 01:00 PM