Dear Editor,
The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) and, by extension, the Gold Rush Administration, is under political assault and both of them are now fighting for survival and meaningfulness. I call a spade a spade and many of my colleagues in our party have dared to question my loyalty to these organizations.
I could care less at this juncture. My sole political focus at this critical juncture, is to ensure the reelection of the PLP as government. Everything else pales when compared to this. All of the progressive institutions and public policy initiatives in our wonderful nation were either established or formulated under assorted PLP administrations. This is an inconvenient truth for many of our detractors and their plantation-styled political manipulators.
The PLP, however, this term in office, has done an extremely poor job at marketing and branding our core message: "We believe in Bahamians". During the campaign leading up to the 2012 general election, we were on a roll and we knew that the pendulum was swinging our way. Almost five years later, that message has dimmed and hundreds of Bahamians are expressing negatives toward us. We have, my friends, no one to blame other than ourselves.
The salient question for us PLPs is: How did we get here and how do we extricate ourselves from the political quicksand in which we find ourselves? The branding and delivery of our message is faulty, but even as we enter the electoral home stretch, still capable of being reengineered and successfully implemented.
The administration must move swiftly to ensure that the residents of those subdivisions which have been deeply affected by the smoldering fires and emissions of potentially deadly toxins are provided with all of the necessary resources to make themselves whole again. To do otherwise would result in many more potential voters going against us. It is accepted that the hazardous situation at the now infamous landfill has existed under successive administrations.
Some years ago, the Free National Movement (FNM) administration, then led by the indomitable, even if haughty, Hubert A. Ingraham, actually borrowed or got a grant in excess of $23 million from an international agency to develop and implement a waste management protocol at the landfill. Dr. Hubert A. Minnis (FNM-Killarney), current leader of the FNM, was an FNM so he should have been in the loop, so to speak.
Nothing much was done or seen to be done with the proceeds from this loan or grant. No one seems to know what the hell it actually was. The successive PLP administrations also failed to address the problems at the landfill in a serious manner. All sorts of scavengers and alleged criminal elements are known to inhabit that site. They burn and scavenge waste items for recycling or commercial sales.
While we want Bahamians to make a living, the security concerns far outweigh the potential benefits to those individuals at our general expense. The permanent or long-term solution to this vexing situation has the capacity to bring this administration down. Thousands of residents have been, and continue to be, negatively impacted by this situation and I fear that the government's response has not been up to scratch.
The administration must also position itself for the immediate freeing up of so-called Crown land, not only to supporters and cronies, but to all adult Bahamians who meet the basic requirements. These grants could be used for commercial and residential purposes.
The criminal justice system is failing our people, in that rehabilitation and the reintegration of offending individuals has not always been a priority for assorted administrations. Offenders go in one way and come out worse than ever before. These people have few viable options to earn a living once they have attracted a criminal record. They are doomed to a life of recidivism, crime and survival of the strongest.
The economy is morbid, but with assorted developments now coming on stream, I fully expect that it will be robust and forward-moving shortly. Whether or not this comes into play before the general election is debatable, but the perception must be developed. All outstanding labor and industrial-related matters must be resolved now. I propose that 50 percent of the aggregate tuition fees at The University of The Bahamas, for Bahamian students, be subsidized from future VAT funds.
The PLP has its work cut out for it and there is no more time to be wasted. There is much more work to be done and so short of a window in which to do it. We have, however, prevailed before, and, certainly, we will, God willing, do it again.

- Ortland H. Bodie Jr.

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