The Free National Movement (FNM) administration just lacked a holistic, creative social vision ...and they failed to see how their economic choices and challenges could actually work for them not against them in the effort to build a stronger, better Bahamas

Ingranomics Part 2

By Ian G. Strachan

Last week we noted that although the Ingraham administration steered us through a treacherous period in world economic history it has not completely come up smelling like roses.  There have been some unpleasant consequences to the administration’s choices and there were, in my view, many missed opportunities.

CULTURE AND INDUSTRY

The FNM’s investments in tourism infrastructure (the harbor dredging, the port move and the new airport terminal), are largely making way for anticipated tourism growth in the medium to long-term. That’s not necessarily a foolish or irresponsible choice to make.

The problem is such investments won’t yield the desired results unless you seriously address some of the reasons The Bahamas is no longer a hot ticket.

We are facing ever diminishing returns in tourism.  Despite the millions who come here on cruise ships, what we really need are stopover visitors and this is where we’ve been dead in the water.  We have had more cruise ship visitors than stopover visitors since the mid 80s.

We are a far more expensive destination than many competitors south of us and that’s not about to change.  But where we are also losing is that we are culturally far less interesting.  Not enough of an investment has been made to actually make The Bahamas a more distinct and attractive destination.  Beaches, casinos and sunshine can be found all over the globe and for a lot less than in Nassau.  Are we going to be offering “1 flies-1 flies free” deals and cruise ship tax rebates for the rest of the decade?

Many of us believe that the answer lies in the marriage of tourism and cultural and artistic expression.  Yet the government of The Bahamas refuses or is unable to act in a manner that encourages wider cultural entrepreneurship – entrepreneurship that can maximize local and tourist markets.  And to be fair, the private sector is even less interested in investing than the government.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, Junkanoo is a Christmas festival not a spring festival like Mardi Gras or Trinidad or Rio Carnival.  The western world is just not going to travel heavily to be in another country on Christmas night or New Year’s Day.  So what does that leave here in the capital?

The Fry (Arawak Cay) is the best attraction in Nassau, outside of Atlantis’ casino, restaurants, clubs and water attractions.  It features local food, live music and atmosphere (at affordable prices, prices which no hotel can match).

How can we expand or duplicate what’s best about the Fry?  What would it cost to do so?

Let’s look at the FNM’s track record. They rejected Carifesta twice.  They show contempt (like the PLP before them) for the run-down shell of a National Performing Arts Centre (which could be the year round home of the National Dance Company, Children’s Choir, Youth Choir, Youth Orchestra, Police and Defence Force bands and a National Theatre Company).

They have made a ghost out of the Junkanoo Museum.  They don’t seem to know what to do with Shakespeare in Paradise.  And they generally refuse to facilitate cultural workers in a sustained and comprehensive way in the tourist zones.

As a result, Nassau remains a dull, run-down, expensive place to visit.  We absorb all sorts of tax breaks for resort development.

In this period why couldn’t we have been bold and taken some risks in an effort to improve The Bahamas as a cultural destination?  Hotels aren’t destinations.  Cities, towns and countries are, but we settle for a country where the only thing people come for is to walk around in Atlantis.  And soon Baha Mar, I suppose.

But outside of the jobs these enclaves create, aren’t we losing out on opportunities to truly maximize the tourist dollars spent on the island?

NUMBERS

Ingraham also flirted with legalizing numbers and then backed off, promising a referendum if he is re-elected.  This is leading from behind, which is not his style.

The Bahamian government is broke and the numbers business is a quarter to half a billion dollar enterprise that goes untaxed and unregulated.

The government has a right and a responsibility to tax the daylights out of this business, to bring it into the light of public scrutiny and to use the money it gains to help build the country and strengthen the social fabric.

Ingraham should have used this recession to regulate numbers.

Instead, a magistrate has confiscated nearly $1 million and fined businessman Craig Flowers $10,000.

By now Ingraham could have collected as much in taxes for numbers as he got in the BTC sale.  He should also have taxed alcohol more heavily as well.

TAXATION

I said earlier that if you are going to risk being voted out over something unpopular, you better make sure that the change you’re introducing is worth it all.

I’m sorry but Ingraham could have left the roads bumpy, focused exclusively on fixing the eastern district water problem, and tackled a real problem instead of going through all this madness with the roads all at once.

What he should have done, again under the cover of the economic crisis, is address our regressive and unethical system of taxation that burdens the poor and middle class and lets the rich and their companies get away with all their cash.

Ingraham should have been the man to introduce income tax.  It’s the perfect time to do so.  The pressure from the U.S. is leading us in that direction anyway.  Would he lose this election if he did so?  He may lose it over unfinished roads.

What I guarantee you though, is that the PLP would not have repealed it afterward.  The government needs revenue.  We have thousands of people on pension in the civil service who have contributed nothing to it but feel entitled.

The bubble will burst eventually.  NIB is already automatically removing a percentage of my salary before it hits my bank account.

I may never make a claim at NIB but I accept that my contribution helps those who need support more than I do.  Income tax is doable.

And thereby we can reduce these ridiculous customs duties that hamper the growth of Bahamian businesses because you are being taxed before you sell anything.  I reject the argument that the government can’t handle income tax.  It can and so can our people.

DOWNSIZING?

I could talk about the fact that after downsizing ZNS, it is still operating at the same quality level as before, or about the FNM’s refusal to touch Bahamasair despite the fact there are homegrown airlines who can pick up the slack.

But instead I wish to raise the question of right sizing the civil service.  I don’t think this has to mean sending hundreds of people home and creating a social and economic crisis.  I mean actually moving people from posts where they are under-performing or are really redundant and re-training them to help plug holes elsewhere in the system.  I’ll give just a few examples.

I once interviewed Loretta Butler-Turner, Minister of State for Social Development, and she told me that the nation could use another 150 social workers.  As you might imagine the social worker does crucial work that is essential to public health, public safety, crime prevention and the overall wellbeing of the society.  Why not re-deploy and re-train some of your civil servants to fill this need?

Our schools are overcrowded.  Every classroom could use a teacher’s aid.  And what about the problem of truancy?  Or the need for environmental health inspectors to check homes and businesses, particularly given the occurrences of dengue.

There were creative options available to the government that would allow it to shift the public service work force to meet the greatest needs.  We need park wardens and after school mentors for our teenagers; we need these in every community.

The FNM just lacked a holistic, creative social vision and they failed to see how their economic choices and challenges could actually work for them not against them in the effort to build a stronger, better country.

They took the unemployed and had them cleaning the streets.  And sure, that met a need, because New Providence is filthy.  But in the same way, there were other serious needs that could have been met, not just with new hires but by properly utilizing the people you already have employed.

So overall, I’ll describe Ingranomics as an orthodox approach, lacking in innovation or experimentation.  Ingraham played it safe, which can be a comfort in these unstable times.  But sometimes you can play it so safe that you get fired by the people anyway, because the times demand more daring.  We’ll see what happens.

Oct 03, 2011

thenassauguardian

Caribbean Blog International

The social vision of Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham and the Catholic social tradition

Hubert Ingraham’s inclusive social vision

FRONT PORCH

BY SIMON

To compare the social vision of Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham with that of the Catholic social tradition is not to suggest that they are identical. But they do bear a resemblance which led to collaboration between the prime minister and the late Archbishop Lawrence Burke, S.J., on a variety of ground-breaking social initiatives.

Bishop Burke, a Jesuit, was never seized by the hackneyed theology of those religionists who view politics and statecraft as inherently corrupt. “He understood modern life and the challenges of those responsible for the conduct of the business of state... ” He saw government as an indispensable means of advancing the common good and often preferred dialogue and private persuasion over hectoring and haranguing national leaders.

This does not mean that he did not have a prophetic voice. He famously and publicly chastised a now sitting member of Parliament for the latter’s comments related to the illegal migration of Haitians to The Bahamas. Bishop Burke’s response was swift and unequivocal, emanating from a first principle that ordered his social witness and mission and efforts in the realm of social justice.

It is the same principle or lodestar that has guided Hubert Ingraham’s ethic of care and compassion and his extraordinary social agenda: the defence of the dignity of the human person. Guided by this principle, Mr. Ingraham has expended political capital and energy combating inequality, prejudice and discrimination while expanding social and economic justice and mobility.

Remarkable

What is remarkable for a man of his age and times is that he has fiercely resisted the temptation to stigmatize various social groups or to pander to the baser instincts of some in The Bahamas who seek to maintain old prejudices or to scapegoat others.

The country often acknowledges those women from Dame Dr. Doris Johnson to Dr. Sandra Dean-Patterson who have enhanced women’s rights. Along with them, any hall of fame honoring champions of female equality must include Hubert Ingraham.

He has appointed or facilitated women attaining high office in government, including an unprecedented number of women to senior cabinet portfolios, and the first female chief justice and governor general, as well as senior posts in the public service.

Mr. Ingraham’s successive administrations instituted sweeping social legislation to secure greater opportunity for and to advance the equality of women and their children. As Hubert Ingraham was acting vigorously and boldly to improve women’s rights, there were some who conspicuously and in a self-congratulatory manner made speeches, travelled the globe and even collected awards for supposedly being champions of women’s rights.

When the courage of conviction was needed both of these evaporated in the face of political opportunism by some. It was Hubert Ingraham who was the profile-in-courage and proved to be more committed to feminist ideals when it came to amending the Constitution to make Bahamian women equal to men in the automatic transmission of citizenship to their children born to a non-Bahamian spouse.

Sadly, the party of Dame Doris Johnson failed to redeem itself on this glaring constitutional omission. It was the PLP who, at the Independence Conference in 1972, did not support the FNM’s progressive view that Bahamian men and women should enjoy equality in all things including this citizenship question.

During a break in the formal talks in London, when a senior PLP leader was pressed by an FNM delegate on the matter, the flippant response was that if Bahamian women got such a right, they would then want the right to use the men’s bathroom.

Opportunism

In the 2002 constitutional referendum, the PLP seemed on the verge of correcting a mistake it made three decades earlier, initially voting in favor of the citizenship question in the House of Assembly. But rank and hypocritical opportunism hijacked the remnants of progressive and liberal ideals that were calcifying in a party that abandoned the struggle for equality for Bahamian women on various fronts.

Returned to office in 2002 with the promise of constitutional reform and purportedly ardent female and male proponents of women’s rights and equality in the Cabinet, the PLP for a third time failed to do the right thing constitutionally on behalf of Bahamian women.

Then came the matter of proposed domestic rape legislation. Last week in a speech at a celebration luncheon for the 30th anniversary of the Bureau of Women's Affairs, Prime Minister Ingraham noted:

“It is an unfortunate and painful reality that when one seeks to equalize conditions that are glaringly offensive, the effort sometimes fails to attract support from those who would benefit.

“This was most recently demonstrated, for example, by the public debate which arose around my government’s initiative to extend protection in law to married women who may be abused by their husbands.”

He continued:

“Indeed, it appears that many in our society, both male and female, are not yet convinced that women are equal; instead stubbornly holding on to outmoded and long discredited 19th century social mores and laws which regarded women as chattel, incapable of making their own decisions and unqualified to vote, own property or defend themselves against the decisions of male relatives.”

While it is disheartening that such a regressive mindset still pertains among many, the sickening reality is those flamboyantly dressed in progressive garb, who mercilessly exploit such regressive mindsets for political advantage.

Courageous

Refreshingly, the PLP has been more progressive on removing discrimination against gays and lesbians and protecting such persons. It was the Pindling administration that decriminalized consensual sexual acts between gay people of consenting age.

In 1998 when a cruise ship with gay passengers travelling to Nassau stirred up the fire and brimstone and scapegoating and hypocrisy of some religious leaders and other belligerents, Hubert Ingraham made one of the most courageous and progressive responses ever by a Bahamian prime minister. It read in part:

“I have been chilled by the vehemence of the expressions against gay persons made by some in our newspapers and over our radio talk shows. Admittedly, there have also been expressions of reason and understanding on this matter on the editorial pages but these have been largely lost in a sea of bitter, poorly-reasoned diatribe.”

He pressed further:

“I do not believe that the future of The Bahamas will be placed in danger because chartered cruises by gay persons are permitted to continue to call at Bahamian ports. The future of The Bahamas is not threatened by foreign persons of homosexual orientation. Homosexuality is not a contagious disease; and it is not a crime in The Bahamas.

“Insofar as family life is concerned, studies conducted in developed nations around the world, most notably in North America and Western Europe, maintain that homosexuals are born and raised by well-adjusted loving heterosexual parents; and that well-adjusted homosexuals have given birth to and raised well-adjusted heterosexual children. While research has not been conducted in The Bahamas, the results would very likely be quite similar among Bahamians.

“An individual’s right to privacy is a basic human right cherished by all people. It is a right which citizens of democratic countries expect to be respected by their government.”

Option

One of the modern additions to the Catholic social tradition was a more pronounced and articulated option for the poor which placed the needs of the poor more deliberately at the heart of Roman Catholicism’s witness on social and economic justice.

Hubert Ingraham’s unrelenting, expansive and dogged focus on responding to the poor and promoting social and economic mobility grew out of his own life story and remarkable personal and public journey.

From helping to stimulate job creation to social development efforts in housing, education and health care, he has uplifted thousands of our poorer citizens. His massive increases in social assistance and landmark social legislation has helped to alleviate the burdens of poorer Bahamians whose daily struggles and ambitions he knows by lived experience.

In his person and his policies he has upheld the dignity of poorer and vulnerable Bahamians. While it is easy for some to caricature him because of his sometimes gruff personality, history will recall that he responded in a more Christian manner to various matters of social concern than some of his supposedly Christian critics including some religious leaders who presumed to be able to read the heart and soul of Hubert Ingraham.

History will also recall that his record of care and compassion will be measured in countless deeds, not the rhetoric of those who talk about compassion but whose records pale in comparison.

Moreover, Hubert Ingraham has enacted a more progressive and socially liberal agenda than those who cloak themselves in progressive rhetoric easily abandoned at the altar of greed and political convenience.

When a then former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham retires he will be able to go fishing, at peace with his record and his conscience that he significantly advanced the cause of social justice and progressive politics. Even some who now cuss or criticize him on a regular basis may eventually do some soul searching and reflection. And, maybe they will accord him the recognition that is his due for creating a more progressive, tolerant and just Bahamas.

frontporchguardian@gmail.com

www.bahamapundit.com

Jun 28, 2011

Caribbean Blog International