On Federation

by Nicolette Bethel

I have long been dissatisfied with local government as it exists in the Bahamas. At the moment, frankly, it's a farce. When a country has "local government" in its outlying territories, but has no municipal governments to govern the two-thirds of the population that lives in the capital, the concept of local government is laughable. I’m going to propose that The Bahamas become a federation.

I can hear the scoffing now. The has always been administered as a single unit; the islands are separated by water, not by politics. If ain’t broke, why fix it?

Here's why:

Size. The Bahamas is physically the largest country in the Caribbean region. In fact, the entire landmass of the Bahamas is comparable to that of Jamaica or Wales; and when you pour the sea into the mix, the size of our country is similar to that of Guyana. At the same time, The Bahamas is remarkably underpopulated. Two and a half million Jamaicans and three million Welshmen occupy the same landmass that we have here in the Bahamas; our population officially stands at just over 300,000 — the size of a tiny American city. And as long as all government and infrastructural services are based in that capital, we are going to stay that way.

Family Island development. Governments talk about it, but none has honestly achieved it. The reason is simple. When "development" is imposed rather than organic, it tends to exclude the people who will be most affected by it. As a result, it generally fails.

National development. The way in which the Bahamian nation is currently administered recalls the way in which the British Empire was administered nearly a hundred years ago: a group of bureaucrats in a metropolis make decisions that affect people in far-flung territories. The short-term returns may appear considerable; but in the long run, the primary beneficiary is always the capital.

In short, central government has stultified the growth of the entire country. It has made Nassau rich and hopelessly inefficient; Nassau can barely rule itself, let alone the entire archipelago. If the nation is to continue to grow and prosper, a true devolution of power from the centre must begin.

What about local government, you say? In its present form, local government achieves very little for most islands except collect taxes for the consolidated fund. In a federation, islands or groups of islands would form states or provinces rather than administrative districts, each with its own elected leader, legislatures and judiciary. In Canada, each province has its own Parliament, its own Premier and its own Lieutenant-Governor to administer local affairs; each American state has a Governor, a Senate and a House of Representatives. Each Bahamian state could be similarly constituted.

But that is the easy part of the concept. The difficult bit is deciding which affairs would be the responsibility of the federal government, and which would be controlled by the states. Most federations maintain control over customs, immigration, defence, finance, and foreign affairs. In addition, most write federal laws that override the wishes of individual regions, and deal with issues that go beyond local jurisdictions. Federations also maintain national law enforcement bodies, while local policing stays in local hands. Social security systems may also be nationally controlled, and federal governments generally bear responsibility for the communications systems that unite the country. Most federations also set national standards for, education, healthcare, land use and broadcasting. However, what very few federations control are local utilities, commerce, economics and the like.

So what would be the benefits for the Bahamas? In the first place, only a radical move such as federation is likely to move large portions of the urban population to the Family Islands. Current initiatives are too narrow in focus, too one-dimensional to work; the emphasis is placed on tourism and foreign investment because the decision-makers live in Nassau and tend not to be familiar with all the possibilities available to each island. But the devolution of central power to local state governments would enable Bahamian states to create work for lawyers, doctors, educators and bureaucrats, thus attracting high-level white-collar workers as well as construction workers and servants. Different islands could also create specific industries and businesses, generating local cadres of CEOs, and taking the responsibility for creating jobs out of Nassau politicians’ hands.

In the second place, vital services such as utilities, healthcare and (to some degree) education would follow population moves. State governments would ultimately have more control over their own destinies than presently exists. Cat Island and Long Island farmers could negotiate their own exports, much as Spanish Wells fishermen and Abaconian citrus farmers already do, without having to be stymied by the current practice of packing houses and the Produce Exchange. Court cases and punishment, at least for certain crimes, could all occur locally, thus leaving the Nassau judicial system for its own crimes; Fox Hill Prison might become the federal penitentiary in such a scenario, and relatively minor crimes could be handled in the communities in which they occur. Local communities could build their own hospitals, thus extending upper-level healthcare beyond Nassau and Freeport. The possibilities abound.

And so I propose that we consider working towards federation, and do it in the way that Canada, Australia and the USA did it before us: in stages, with the more populous territories leading the less populated ones. Many of the northern islands could benefit immediately from being given considerable autonomy, and certain central and southern ones might surprise us with their development if accorded similar freedoms. I believe that in the long run such a move could only benefit the country as a whole.

Comments

[The Bahamian Nationalist]

There is merit in the Federation concept, as part of a general republican approach to the political and administrative organization of the Bahamas.
The devil will be in the detail however. A serious problem at present is the impression in some islands that their revenue is only serving the needs of Nassau, and little is being used to provide necessary services in the very islands which generate the revenue. This has to be addressed.
If local government was really made effective, this would assist the transition to a Federal system.
More education on this point is needed, indeed there ought to be a course in Bahamian high schools dealing with the constitution, rights, and government generally, local government in particular.
Like all good ideas, proper groundwork is needed, but the power hungry polititians of this Bahamas, who like to be known as maximum leaders are not statesmen enough to consider this concept. They would loose too much power in a Federation of Islands. So Ms. Bethel would have to wait for the political culture to change, or get active and help the Nationalist, and others of like mind, to change it!