Dear Editor,
The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) secured a destructive and body blow victory during the general election. Apart from a miracle from heaven the Free National Movement (FNM) is likely to be in opposition for a long time. Mind you, under the capable and steady hands of Leader of the Opposition Dr. Hubert A. Minnis (FNM-Killarney), that rump party may well emerge from the ashes of defeat in 2017, but it will need a major surgical operation.
Now that the PLP and its greatly underestimated leader have been returned to power, they will both be baptized by fire, in my humble submission. The FNM and its out of touch former leader jacked this nation right up with not the least bit of apparent shame.
Our national debt, as far as most people are aware, exceeds $4.5 billion. The so-called ongoing road works may cost us an additional $70 million to $100 million. Our schools here in New Providence and over in Grand Bahama are literally falling apart.
While Hubert "Nero" Ingraham was singing and preening, the country was being run like an out of control locomotive. The ship appears to have run aground and the shaving cream is smeared all over the fan. Governmental contracts and apparent "perks" for political hacks and cronies were, allegedly, dished out like lamb chops with mint jelly in the weeks leading up to the general election.
According to the best estimates, the PLP administration will require at least $500 million in new borrowings just to keep The Bahamas afloat this fiscal year.
Crime and the appropriate punishment are still problems and no apparent solutions are in sight. The civil service is bloated and very counter-productive, to say the least, but our politicians lack the political will to downsize it.
Our society, as we used to know it, has disintegrated right before our very eyes. Our men and women of the cloth are now wolves and bandits in sheep's clothing. Big rusty men are preying on our youth, be they male or female, and the beat goes on. Affordable housing for the masses in New Providence is but a pipe dream for the vast majority.
The PLP and its leader are now in the process of being baptized by fire. It will take a great deal of ingenuity for them to turn this economy around and to create the 40,000-odd well paying public and private sector jobs required to stabilize employment and under employment. Teenage pregnancies and rampant alleged abortions are moral blights on our collective society and ain't no one checking.
Traffic congestion and management are but figments of our imagination. The traffic police of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, headed by my "good" friend Supt. Ken Strachan, is overwhelmed, under-resourced and, apparently, clueless as to how to bring sanity back to our jacked up roads, especially during rush hours. The commissioner himself seems to have gone AWOL and is nowhere to be seen except at photo opportunities.
Our utilities, inclusive of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) and Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) are, clearly, not up to the challenges. With the smallest drop of rain or high winds, BEC has to load shed. BTC was sold with great fanfare a year or so ago and services and options have never been worse with all due respect.
Top management at BEC needs to be shuffled or even made to step back and smell the coffee. Over at BTC, Geoff Houston needs to rationalize his top-heavy management team and come up with a fresh and bold business module. What we are getting and experiencing now is unacceptable and certainly unbelievable.
The PLP clamored for another opportunity to govern our beautiful, if challenged, country and it got its wish. Now that it is in the seat of governance again, it must usher in heaven on earth in the shortest period of time. The electorate has woken up and it will no longer tolerate broken promises and pie in the sky dreams and delusions. We want it (whatever that is) and we (not necessarily Ortland H. Bodie Jr.) want it now.
Baptism by fire is not a pleasant exercise or ritual, as the PLP and its leadership cadre will soon find out. The FNM and its holographic leadership has left us in the unenviable position where we will soon be seeing "dead people" wherever two or more are gathered.
To God then, in all of these things, be the glory.
Ortland H. Bodie Jr.

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