Perry Christie has been a supreme disaster as prime minister, a job he covets with all his being, but for which he has conclusively proven he is woefully out of his depth.
He is the worst head of government since the advent of internal self-rule, a man with little depth of understanding of finance and economics, bereft of an economic vision, given instead to platitudes.
The political, economic and social tests of the PLP's last five years are simple and conclusive: most Bahamians are and The Bahamas is considerably worse off than five years ago!
Economic growth is pathetic, with no strategy for growth or the re-thinking and transformation of tourism or a sensible strategy for diversification within our leading industry and other industries.
Unemployment has reached chronic levels. Corruption in high places is epidemic, further destroying our economy while certain PLP fat cats lavish themselves in a cesspool of greed that knows few to no bounds.
There is excessive and spectacular waste, flowing endlessly and ferociously like Niagara Falls, with no end in sight.
From lavish travel for senior officials with their hangers-on and retinues to wasteful contracts, the PLP has wasted vast millions.
The tacky and ugly Christmas decorations done at considerable and wasted cost by a PLP crony is but one glaring example of the extraordinary waste of public funds.
That the PLP continues to justify the waste on carnival shows its contempt for fiscal discipline and its determination to waste many millions on unjustifiable expenses.
This is undoubtedly the most wasteful government in the modern Bahamas.
While the country goes to hell many of the mandarins are living a heavenly lifestyle at the expense of the poor and middle class.
A dear friend observes that even though we know about some of the scandals and corruption and abuses of power in the current PLP term, there is no accountability. Many can do whatever they want with no penalty or responsibility.

Shallow
Christie's vision for economic development is shallow, hackneyed and amateurish as evidenced by the disaster of Baha Mar from its inception to its collapse to deciding to push it into liquidation and at the mercy of certain foreign interests, to his failure to get the megaresort open.
At every stage of its development Christie and the PLP have proven a monumental failure.
Despite the latest round of delusion and hype, Baha Mar may not open in a substantial or meaningful way until later in the year, making another downgrade by an international agency quite possible.
We still do not know the details of the latest deal and how much of the bill taxpayers will foot for its eventual opening.
Christie and his current administration have not only failed to advance the common good, advancing instead the narrow interests of a coterie of cronies. They are also destroying the Bahamian dream and pushing the country to the brink of economic disaster.
Five more years of Perry Christie and the PLP will result in The Bahamas heading toward the economic nightmare visited on Jamaica because of economic mismanagement in our Caribbean neighbor decades ago.
Some Bahamians are moving their money out of the country. Combined with the government's likely having to borrow more from local banks at higher rates, liquidity may become a problem, with the interest payments on loans for individuals and businesses going up.
Five more years of the PLP will result in a downward spiral from which a once golden Bahamas economy may not recover for decades.

Straightjacket
The PLP is a straightjacket on the economy and on the dreams and aspirations of the Bahamian people. With another term for the PLP, young people, with their enterprise, energy and entrepreneurial spirit will abandon the country in droves.
The exodus of Bahamians has begun. On the eve of 50 years of majority rule, the party that helped to usher in this milestone is now one of the most destructive forces in the nation's history.
They have destroyed dreams and hopes. They are destroying our future. The PLP is now the most compelling threat to our national survival.
Perry Gladstone Christie and today's PLP are an embarrassment to the ideals and legacy of majority rule.
Christie lauds the government's National Development Plan, which is just that: a plan. But such a plan will remain just that because our public finances may be in a shambles, with a vast sum of government revenue going to increasing and paralysing interest payments on the debt.
The recent downgrade by Standard and Poor's has been described as the first major domino to fall. We are quickly moving away from the investment grade we once enjoyed.
Clearly, the rating agency no longer believes the economic spin and baloney manufactured and spewed by Christie and the PLP.
What is galling and vomit-inducing is Christie's asinine excuses for the recent downgrade including: because of an act of God (Hurricane Matthew) and because of his supposed love for the poor.

Mindless
Once given the moniker "Lord Bull", because of his capacity for excessive bull crap, a euphemism, we now all need boots and wet suits to wade through the level of mindless excuses and bull that is many feet deep and continues to exude from a prime minister who accepts responsibility for nothing.
The load of bull now requires public health experts to issue warnings about the effects of the sewer of crap generated by Christie and the PLP.
One senior political observer insists that the Christie administration is not levelling with the Bahamian people about the true desperate state of public finances, including a chronic cash flow problem, despite higher than expected VAT receipts of which the government brags.
Since its inception the government has netted approximately "$852 million in gross VAT receipts for the 18 months to end-June 2016", according to one of the dailies, which is approaching one-tenth of our GDP.
How much more has been collected from June to December 2016 and how is this money being spent? The revenue collected from VAT may be approaching $1 billion. Yet the PLP has little to nothing to show for this nor for the vast sums of money borrowed over the last five years, which is now approximately over a billion dollars.
If we are downgraded next year by Moody's to junk status, the cost of government borrowing will increase significantly and the country will be headed to economic hell thanks to the PLP and Christie.

Bailout
More dominoes will follow in the years to come. It is conceivable that five more years of Christie could eventually result in the need for an economic bailout and the devaluation of our currency.
None of this was inevitable. Most of it has to do with the arrogance, recklessness, incompetence and economic mismanagement of Christie and the PLP, who have wrecked our economy with record speed in a relatively short period.
To purportedly help advance the dreams of tens of thousands of Bahamians for a better life the PLP promised: National Health Insurance, mortgage relief, doubling the national investment in education, a dramatic increase in jobs - including 10,000 in their first year in office - and other unfulfilled promises.
Their failure to fulfil these promises is spectacular. Worse, they have presided over more Bahamians falling behind, a declining middle class, the increasing exodus of Bahamian professionals, more joblessness and hopelessness and thousands disconnected from electricity.
Yet many in Christie's court and the mandarins in the PLP oligarchy have never had it so good.
Meanwhile, government spending is out of control, with an undisciplined finance minister incapable of reining in spending.
Scores of lucrative contracts and consultancies have flowed to PLP beneficiaries, costing the country many millions.
There are reports of significant hiring at various entities though there is no office space or work for many of these hires.
Despite bringing the country to its knees, Christie and the PLP want five more years to complete their destruction, not giving a damn, as long as they reign in comfort.
But for what they have done to wreck our common dreams and common good, they deserve neither our trust nor our respect nor our hopes and dreams.
Perry Christie and the PLP must be defeated for the very survival of the country that we love but is now on the brink of a downward spiral from which our grandchildren may not recover, that is, those who are still left in the country.

o frontporchguardian@gmail.com, www.bahamapundit.com.

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