The PM's 20,000 jobs myth debunked

Wed, Jul 6th 2016, 05:14 PM

Dear Editor,

With the election now on the horizon, PM Perry Christie and the PLP propaganda machinery will kick into high gear in order to convince the masses that the PLP government has lived up to its many pledges penned in its Charter for Governance.

One of the pledges Christie and Co. made on the campaign trail would be the creation of thousands of jobs. Christie those stated that if his administration was able to create 22,000 years between 2002 and 2007 when the economy was moribund, he would be able again to create thousands of jobs in a bad economy.

DPM Philip Brave Davis went out on a limb and promised 10,000 jobs in the PLP's first year in office. Sensing that his government would be facing a political backlash from the more than 30,000 unemployed and desperate Bahamians for failing to live up to such a grandiose pledge, Davis spun the yarn in 2014 by making the ridiculously incredible claim that the PLP, via the Ministry of Works, created 10,000 jobs.

You get the sense that Davis and Co. take Bahamians for fools. This is reinforced by National Insurance Minister Shane Gibson's claim that 30,000 new jobs were added to the economy. This flimsy claim was also made in 2014.

Christie is now claiming that 20,000 new jobs were added to the economy since 2012. I don't believe Christie. But I think I know how the PM arrived at this figure. Remember, Baha Mar went belly-up and sent home 2,000 Bahamians in the process. Christie and Co. barked for five years between 2002 and 2007 that his government created 22,000 jobs, as I have mentioned above. Subtract the 2,000 Baha Mar jobs and you come to the figure of 20,000.

It seems like Christie is fixated with this 22,000 jobs figure, but couldn't bring himself to attempt to hoodwink Bahamians into thinking he had created that many jobs in light of what has transpired at Baha Mar. In many ways, Baha Mar's collapse is a fitting symbol of the PLP's pathetic performance.

With another Moody's financial downgrade in the offing coupled with its inability to fulfill its election promise to create thousands of jobs, the PLP finds itself between a rock and a hard place. Put bluntly, the PLP has failed miserably. Its Charter for Governance should be torn up as whatever has been outlined in it isn't worth the paper it was written on.

- The Whistleblower 2.0

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