Bahama Pundit

Reviving the BTC and BEC Dinosaurs

by Larry Smith

"In a difficult economy you need investor confidence and consumer confidence to get going ." -- khaalis Rolle. minister of state for investments

In 1997 the Free National Movement ran for re-election on a platform that explicitly called for the privatization of BaTelCo - the state-owned telecoms monopoly that everyone loved to hate for its studied incompetence and don't-give-a-crap arrogance.

Even before then, the Pindling government (no paragon of privatization) had held confidential talks with UK-based Cable & Wireless about selling a stake in BaTelCo. But after its landslide re-election in 1997, the FNM launched a formal privatization process. And the PLP continued that process throughout Perry Christie's first term.

We are all too familiar with the more recent history. The FNM continued the privatization process after it returned to office in 2007, and set about reforming the communications sector's regulatory framework. But after more than a dozen years only one major telecoms provider had come forward - Digicell, which later pulled out of the running.

In 2010, Cable & Wireless Communications, a major industry player with a long history in the region, expressed an interest in BTC and eventually agreed to buy 51 per cent for some $210 million - following extensive due diligence by both sides. The sale was ratified by parliament in April 2011, ending an ignominious 13-year saga, and the Bahamian telecoms market will finally be liberalized in 2014, when BTC's mobile monopoly expires.

Are we Up to the Challenge?

by Simon

During the election campaign both major parties committed to long-term national planning.  Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham promoted Jubilee Bahamas, a 10-year national planning process leading to the 2023 independence jubilee.  Given his record, such a planning exercise would have been conducted extending the plans and accomplishments of his former administrations.

As it did with a number of other policy matters, the PLP followed suit, adding a twist:  It promised a 30-year plan.  Notwithstanding this copycat, and that 30-year plans tend to make little sense in terms of realistic planning, it remains dubious that the incumbent government will, given its past, fulfil its pledge.

But long-term planning going forward is critical, and not just because such planning is perennially essential.  We are, today, in the midst of some of the more dramatic structural changes facing the country post-independence. 

Putting the War on Crime in Context

by Larry Smith

"(Former police prosecutor) Keith Bell said the only way to address the problem was for the political class as a priority to agree on a common agenda for crime reduction and comprehensive legal reform." -- Tough Call, 2008.

"People blame the PLP government and they blame the FNM government, but it is really the family and the way they bring these kids up." -- Livingstone Miller, taxi driver, 2007.

With all the shock-horror at our skyrocketing crime rate, you would never believe that the causes and consequences of the country's social slide have been copiously documented over the past 20-odd years by a slew of commissions and reports.

From the 1984 commission of inquiry into drug trafficking; to the 1994 task force on education and the committee on youth development; to the 1998 national crime commission; to the 2003 prison reform commission; to reports by the prison superintendent and chief justice; to the 2008 House select committee on crime headed by Dr Bernard Nottage - which never actually got to report because parliament was prorogued.

And that is by no means an exhaustive list.

Guns for Ministers & Pandora’s Box

by Simon

Pandora’s Box, of Greek mythology, was actually a large jar containing a miasma of evils.  Once opened, it was near impossible to contain the evil now escaped.  The lid on the Pandora’s Box of gun violence in The Bahamas was blown open in the late 70s with a lethal compound of mass drug trafficking and vulgar greed by those who facilitated and benefitted from the deadly trade.

We became entangled in a double-bind and the cross-fire of battles waged with illegal weapons from North America over illicit drugs headed to North America.  Today, the killing fields of drug-, gun- and gang-related violence stretch across the Americas.

Geography is only partly destiny.  With our archipelago of islets and inlets ideal for trading in illicit gain, and proximity to the world’s largest gun producer and largest consumer of illegal drugs, we too became addicted to drugs, fast-money and blood-letting. 

Like fish-poisoning, it is difficult to rid one’s organs and bloodstream of certain toxins once in the system.  Likewise with the toxins unleashed by the drug-induced frenzy of the last three decades of the 1900s.

Rio + 20—Towards a Green Economy

by Larry Smith

Most people these days are focused on the economy, and the ups and downs of the stock market. But later this month, the world's attention will switch to the environment, as 180 political leaders and 50,000 activists, businesspeople and NGO representatives meet in Brazil for a generational conference on sustainable development.

Among them will be a high-level delegation from the Bahamas led by Environment Minister Kenred Dorsett, Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell and BEST Commission chief Philip Weech. They will be taking part in what is expected to be the largest ever United Nations conference.

And rather than the stock market, they will be focused on something called the Living Planet Index - a measurement created by the World Wildlife Fund to gauge the health of global ecosystems by tracking population trends of over 2600 land and sea animal species.

Much as the stock market tracks the value of a set of shares, the LPI calculates the average annual rate of change for species populations from a base year of 1970 to 2008 - the latest year for which sufficient data are available. Alarmingly, the index shows a 28 per cent global decline in average species population size over the past 40 years.

And for land and sea species in tropical zones, the decline is even more dramatic - over 60 per cent since 1970.

Keeping Up Appearances

by Simon

The lead character in the British sitcom, Keeping Up Appearances is the pretentious social-climber Hyacinth Bucket (who prefers her name to be pronounced Bouquet).  Hyacinth is middle class “wedged between a working class background and upper class aspirations”. 

Though she and husband, Richard, are financially comfortable, “the lady of the house”, as she refers to herself, is obsessive about giving the appearance of being higher up on the social ladder of British society.

Among much of today’s Bahamian middle class, keeping up appearances is also important.  Bahamians generally know how to look good.  We have the nice clothes with the requisite brand labels and accessories from jewelry to designer eyewear.  We also accessorize our status with just the right car or SUV.

Today, much of this is a desperate keeping up of appearances as much of the middle class is in financial turmoil.  The turmoil and deep-seated anxiety is affecting everything from divorce rates to chemical dependency to voting patterns.  Many are barely surviving paycheck-to-paycheck and from maxed-out credit card to maxed-out credit card.  

For more of the middle class than many may imagine, the credit card shuffle is a seemingly never-ending juggling of ever mounting debt with a dwindling availability of credit in order to stay afloat.

Bahamas Budget Perspective—2012

by Larry Smith

Against the backdrop of this year's post-election budget debate in Parliament, we thought it would be useful to look at how our economic circumstances have evolved over the past decade.

May 2001
When the first Ingraham administration tabled its final budget, Finance Minister Sir William Allen talked about containing the demands of inefficient, money-wasting state corporations like Bahamasair and ZNS.

He deplored the three-year delay in divesting BTC, which he attributed to the sorry state of the corporation's accounts - meaning it had been allowed to operate incompetently for decades.

But the future looked bright. The Bahamian economy had grown by 5 per cent in 2000, with more of the same projected for 2001. And the government-debt-to-GDP ratio was about 30 per cent ($1.5 billion), considered sustainable by most economists.

"The declining debt and lower interest rates have reduced the cost of debt servicing," Sir William said. "Unemployment has been reduced to the lowest levels ever recorded (6.9 per cent), living standards are approaching those of the advanced OECD countries, and Bahamian society is prepared to meet the future with greater certainty and confidence than ever."

These were certainly achievements to brag about. An overall budget balance had been recorded for the first time since the early 1970s, and Allen was predicting that fiscal imbalances would become a thing of the past.

But that optimism was fleeting. Within months, the deadly terror attacks on New York and Washington produced panic in the US and sparked a worldwide recession that halved global economic growth. A sharp fall-off in travel forced the Bahamas to take emergency fiscal measures.

The FNM Ignites it’s Future

 by Simon

The FNM was defeated on May 7. But it is clearly not in a defeatist mood as evidenced by its special one-day convention held at the Holy Trinity Activity Centre this past Saturday.  The theme, Ignite the Future was prescient. 

Just three weeks after its defeat, the FNM has done something often rare in Bahamian party politics.  It has placed a new generation of leaders in the three top posts of the party, namely Dr. Hubert Minnis as Leader, Loretta Butler Turner as Deputy Leader and Charles Maynard as Chairman.  The FNM’s Senate team is led by Senator Desmond Bannister.

After the FNM’s convention, the political landscape resembles an Anancy-like tale charged with irony.  The PLP’s counterparts of the four Opposition leaders mentioned are all of a certain age or have been in frontline politics for quite some time.

Curiously, the new Government seems dated in some ways while the party that was defeated is already putting forward a fresh image and new faces of leadership. Both victory and defeat contain rewards as well as complexities and challenges.