Minister of Labour and National Insurance Shane Gibson has claimed The Nassau Guardian is out to destroy the Progressive Liberal Party government.
Gibson said the media's criticisms of Prime Minister Perry Christie are unfair and accused The Guardian of having a "search and destroy" agenda.
As for his own party's agenda, the minister had this rather meandering assessment to offer: "All I'm saying is that our agenda is not other people's agenda. We have an agenda. We also take into consideration the views of other people from non-governmental organizations and public servants. When we take those views into consideration, people say we don't have an agenda. We have an agenda. We are satisfied and guess what, the public will know and the public will decide."
So Gibson and his colleagues are satisfied. Unfortunately for the PLP, many members of the public, which as he rightly says will decide, are far less pleased with matters.
This is because the public was made certain promises - certain specific promises - by Gibson's party in the run-up to the 2012 election, and swept the PLP to office based on their confidence that a new Christie administration would keep its word.
But, as outlined in the National Review article that prompted Gibson's remarks, the PLP has managed to live up to very few of its pledges.
The prime minister said the government would implement value-added tax (VAT) on July 1 of this year, only to suggest he wouldn't, followed by Minister of State for Finance Michael Halkitis announcing this week that implementation will be delayed.
The government also said it would hold a constitutional referendum by June, but failed to bring any bills before Parliament in this regard. Last month, Constitutional Commission Chairman Sean McWeeney said the government might have to delay the referendum for a third time.
The government also postponed debate on the Gaming Bill, which was tabled last year, and has dragged its feet in appointing a select committee to investigate the sale of the majority stake in the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) in 2011, to the dismay of the party's own MP Renward Wells.
There was the promised relief for the thousands of Bahamians who were struggling to pay or had already defaulted on their mortgages. The government implemented a scheme, only to see it collapse in failure.
And of course there was the centerpiece of the PLP's election campaign, the pledge to get the frightening levels of violent crime under control. As Gibson and his colleagues get set to enter their third year in office, the country is on course for yet another 100-plus annual murder count.
Gibson said that before criticizing, the media should try and understand his government's agenda. We have. And what we noticed is that it seems to revolve more around aiding the party faithful and friends of the executive - for example tax-delinquent VAT Coordinator Ishmael Lightbourne, and a contractor previously fired for poor performance - than it does living up to the deal they made with the public on Election Day.

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