Local Government for New Providence – Part 1

by Simon

•Simon is a young Bahamian with things on his mind who wishes to remain anonymous. His column 'Front Porch' is published every Tuesday in the Nassau Guardian. He can be reached at frontporchguardian@gmail.com.

Local government for New Providence is one of those ideas many people support in principle but have little idea as to how it might work in practice.  Moreover, many of the proponents of local government on the capital island have yet to grasp or define basic terms.

Because of the archipelagic nature of The Bahamas, with the central government some distance from those communities, and the propensity of officials to focus on New Providence, the idea of elected local government for Grand Bahama and the other islands was much to be desired. 

It is doubtful if a similar system is necessary or practical for New Providence.  A number of questions may be posed and a number of observations may be useful.  Among others, there are three principles which rationalize the nature of and need for local government, namely: subsidiarity, the common good and participatory democracy.

Rather than the concept of decentralization, the notion of subsidiarity may best capture the democratic imperative of making government as responsive as possible to those affected by specific government policies.  In a sense, subsidiarity is the principle and decentralization the means to animate the principle.

Wikipedia notes that “subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority”.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as “the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level”.

EXAMPLE

The ongoing effort to decentralize the running of public schools beyond the heavily bureaucratized and typically cumbersome Ministry of Education headquarters is an example of subsidiarity.  But while the management of schools should be decentralized, the curricular standards by which these schools must perform cannot be left to elected school boards.

Likewise, our far-flung family of islands should be empowered to manage a variety of matters which can be performed more effectively at the local level. 

For many, the idea of local government for New Providence is more sloganeering and following fashion than considered opinion, requiring a reality check.  In one sense, with our quite small population -- we rank 178 out of 239 countries in terms of population size -- we might be considered a municipality.  It will be decades before we reach the one million mark.

Moreover, the recent island-wide blackouts should give us some perspective as to how small is the 21x7 island most Bahamians call home. With only about 260,000 residents, New Providence is effectively run by a local government that also happens to be the national government.

While this has some drawbacks and there is a clear need for decentralization, it is mostly beneficial in terms of effective coordination and fixing problems.  If the electricity continuously goes off in Current, Eleuthera, the problem may or may not be fixed in a timely manner.  When your electricity goes off the same time as a cabinet minister’s, the problem tends to be addressed more speedily.

NEIGHBOURS

These same cabinet ministers drive themselves, and the public officers who help run the country are our neighbours and fellow churchgoers. When we’re not openly cussing them by some other name we refer to our leaders as Hubert and Perry.

In essence, the rationale for and ideas about creating a system of local government for New Providence is not as clear cut or simple as some would suggest. To wit, a frequent writer of letters to the editor who also hosts a radio show proposes the election of local councils for “districts” in New Providence, with the councils each electing a mayor. 

What does he propose as the geographical boundaries for those districts?  One clue is his suggestion that “sprawling residential and commercial areas such as Carmichael and Prince Charles Drive are prime sites for the implementation of local government.”
Assuming that the areas mentioned are home to several thousand people, and that there are approximately 260,000 people in New Providence, there may be up to 26 councils and mayors or more depending on the population breakdown of each district.  In this proposal there could be mayors for Prince Charles Drive, Carmichael, South Beach, Montagu, Market Street North, Blue Hills and many others.  So, what would be the functions of these councils and mayors?

According to the writer, “local government, in its purest sense, means that the people who live in a particular community or municipality are ‘responsible’ for the governance and administration of basic infrastructure; maintenance of the same; collection of local revenue and provision of such services like road maintenance; garbage collection and disposal, and of course imposition of service fees, where warranted.”

Here is where the need for common sense and the principle of the common good comes to the fore.  This proposal is highly impractical on multiple levels, and would lead to greater social division.

In order to operate, many municipalities impose property taxes, user and other taxes and fees on the residents and businesses within their jurisdiction.  This would mean that some areas would be flush with money, with other areas perpetually struggling to pay for basic services.

This is a threat to basic social justice, with potentially harsh consequences for poorer communities. It is also an assault on the principle of the common good, where revenues are pooled and distributed according to the broader needs of the wider Bahamian community.

BALKANIZING

Without the revenue base of New Providence, many of our Family Islands could not survive by themselves.  Further balkanizing New Providence on the lines proposed would do extraordinarily more harm than good.  Such a proposal could also lead to a duplication of services, wreaking havoc on any economies of scale arrived at by the central government doing its job better.

If the goals are to improve government services and the responsiveness of Members of Parliament, while encouraging the final principle, participatory democracy in terms of greater citizen involvement, there are other ideas that are not only more practical, but will better serve these goals, more of which in a subsequent Front Porch.

There is a human tendency to romanticize that the creation of new structures to displace older ones will lead to a new dawn.  The reality is that making ill-considered changes often leads to a torrent of negative unintended consequences.  There are few magic bullets when it comes to public policy, despite the noise on most talk shows.

Often, the more urgent task is to reform and overhaul existing structures and institutions, which typically have more capacity and functionality than many imagine.  This is certainly the case with our parliamentary system, the genius and possibilities of which many avid commentators are woefully ignorant.  We already have many of the instruments of participatory democracy. They just need to be better understood and utilized.

In the end, the issue is effective government, not simply local government.  Sometimes good governance requires the full powers of a strong central government.   Sometimes it requires the on-the-ground knowledge and flexibility of local government.  The tough and ongoing work is how to get the mix right on a host of daily problems and longer-term challenges.

Week after next, Front Porch will explore a variety of ideas with regard to making our democracy more participatory, including the idea of neighbourhood advisory councils for New Providence.  It is an idea that has been used quite effectively in municipalities around the world, including the U.S. capital, Washington D.C.

Comments

[Erasmus Folly]

Our problem is not the structure; it is the culture. We tolerate slackness; we tolerate laziness; we tolerate corruption; we simply do not demand ACCOUNTABILITY from anyone at anytime. This is a cultural problem: first and foremost and the leaders need to get up there and talk about these things and say that they must change and give examples and make examples - that is the only way to move forward. All else is a total waste of time and money.