With the symbolic ringing of the bell yesterday, we are fully into election season, but voters should be mindful that there are a number of critical matters the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) government has refused to fully report on -- if they have reported at all -- and crucial information that continues to be kept away from the electorate, information that we have a legitimate right to.
One thing the PLP has proven this term, and that is it is masterful at obfuscation, suppression and deflection.Toward the end of the term, it brought a Freedom of Information Bill, finally.
The bill has been debated in both houses of Parliament and passed.
It has not yet been brought into force and we could get no confirmation from any government official on when that will happen.
The list of the Christie administration's secret dealings or unanswered questions is long.
From the Baha Mar deal, to the report into the delayed Rubis report, the suppressed restructured BTC agreement and the waste of $650,000 of taxpayers' money on the Caribbean Muzik Festival, this government has a lot to answer for.
Voters ought not be fooled by Prime Minister Perry Christie's efforts to demonize Free National Movement(FNM) Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis and cast the FNM's team of candidates as unworthy or incompetent.
Yes. We all know Minnis is challenged. Many close to him know he is challenged. Members of his team still quietly talk about the fact that he is not inspirational.
What Christie is not talking about, is that which many Bahamians have been demanding throughout this term: Answers on matters in the national interest.

Baha Mar documents

Voters have every right to be suspicious of their government given that eight months after Christie announced that an agreement was reached with the Export-Import Bank of China (CEXIM) to complete Baha Mar, the deal has still not been made public.
The prime minister reported that the Chinese requested that the Supreme Court seal the deal.
In January, Christie told reporters that Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson has been directed to have the deal made public "at the earliest opportunity".
"We have negotiated at length on Baha Mar and notwithstanding what has been said we did not (and) we were not the principal persons to ask the court to keep the information hidden away from the Bahamian public," he said.
"That was a commercial decision made by the lawyers of the bank and our attorney general is under direction from this Cabinet that at the earliest opportunity the government of The Bahamas should move to have the documentation before the court be made public.
"We have no difficulty whatsoever of being able to account for what we have negotiated and I can tell you this, in the history of this country, that will go down as one of the most brilliant set of negotiations ever done in advancing the cause of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas."
Maynard-Gibson subsequently reported that the documents will be released before the start of the phased opening of Baha Mar on April 21.
Asked on Monday when the documents will be released, she repeated it will happen this month, although she declined to say whether they will be made public before the opening.
Many people are anxious to know what the government agreed to, to get Baha Mar back on course.
We previously revealed that the government has waived value-added tax payments in connection with completing the project.
That came about as a result of leaked information.
What else it agreed to is anybody's guess.
We will wait with interest to find out.
If the government goes into election with the Baha Mar documents still hidden from the public, voters should take this as a sign that there really is something to hide, and send a strong message to the PLP.

BTC deal

One of the key promises Christie and the PLP made ahead of the 2012 general election was to get back majority control for Bahamians in the Bahamas Telecommunications (BTC) company, as well as majority ownership from Cable and Wireless Communications (CWC).
Bahamians do not have majority control of BTC, but nearly three years ago, the government inked a deal with CWC to get back two percent of the shares in the company, we were told.
The announcement was made with great fanfare on August 29, 2014, but Christie never made the agreement public, despite promising several times to do so.
Quite frankly, it is insulting that he has kept this secret from the Bahamian people.
Christie finally reported last month that the BTC Foundation, created under that deal, has accrued almost $1.3 million since it was established in 2014.
Christie's recent reporting on the foundation was the first update to be given by the government since the deal was signed.
The time has long passed for the government to make the full agreement public, but we doubt it will do so in the remaining days of this term, with Parliament dissolved.
The CWC deal puts a lie to the government's claim that it is transparent.
While promising to get back a majority interest in BTC for the Bahamian people, the PLP on the campaign trail also pledged to launch a probe into the Ingraham administration's sale of 51 percent of the shares to CWC in 2011.
In fact, PLP Deputy Philip Brave Davis pledged that there would be a commission of inquiry to look into this sale and other matters, including the development of the shipping port at Arawak Cay, and the controversial New Providence Road Improvement Project.
As we suspected at the time, that was more hot air from a party that was prepared to do and say just about anything to win the election.
Last November, Labour Minister Shane Gibson moved for the appointment of a parliamentary select committee to probe the BTC sale.
The parliamentary session ended without any report from the late-term committee.

The BPL business plan

We've pressed government officials on this a thousand times, but we still have not been able to get our hands on a copy of the $900,000 Bahamas Power and Light business plan.
The Christie administration signed a transition services agreement with PowerSecure on July 22, 2015.
At the core of that agreement was a new business plan based on evaluations of the Bahamas Electricity Corporation's finances, power generation and power reliability issues.
Deputy Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis promised numerous times to make the business plan public. But it remains secret.
It is unclear whether we will ever get to see this plan our tax dollars funded.
It would be interesting to see what becomes of BEC under a Minnis administration if the FNM wins the election.
FNM Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis charged at a political event on Christie Park last week that "The PLP made the problems at BEC worse by bringing in a company that made a mess of things."

$650K for Caribbean Muzik Festival

We chuckled the other day when the prime minister talked about how easy it is to "piss away money". There are clear examples this term of his administration doing just that.
We might run out of newsprint if we attempt list them all.
In 2015, the Ministry of Tourism pumped $650,000 into the Caribbean Muzik Festival.
The main events of the festival never happened.
As we previously reported, the Bahamian taxpayers did not get value for money.
The sponsorship was a waste, and there has been no reporting on what the ministry is doing to recoup the funds, although Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe suggested some time back that there would be legal action.
He even pointed a finger at his colleague, Alfred Sears, the PLP's Fort Charlotte candidate, who was a festival director prior to getting the nomination.
It is unsettling that, that money has seemingly been wasted.
We imagine this is one of those matters the government would rather see left alone, especially during this period of heightened demands and scrutiny over the administration of public affairs and public money.
It seems this $650,000 has been flushed down the drain.
This is just unacceptable, and should also be foremost in people's minds as they assess the actions of the Christie administration this lap, its level of accountability and its management of the public purse.

The report into the delayed Rubis report

There is perhaps no other matter this term that displayed the Christie administration's callous disregard for the Bahamian people than the matter involving a fuel spill at Rubis gas station on Robinson Road.
In May 2015, amid public uproar over the government's suppression of a damning report into the spill, Maynard-Gibson announced that the government appointed retired Justice Joseph Strachan to conduct an independent review into the cause of the delayed release of a report by Black and Veatch into the leak.
The report warned of possible health risks to people who live and work in the area, but the government sat on the report for more than a year, releasing it only after angry residents expressed outrage at a town meeting.
It has been nearly two years since Maynard-Gibson announced the independent review was being conducted.
Incredibly, the government has also refused to make public the report into the reasons for the delay.
This is insulting.
Last July, Strachan told us he expects that in "due course, persons who are in a better position than I will speak to the release of the report".
At the time, the attorney general said the matter was not before her and she was not prepared to discuss it.
Nine months later, no one has addressed the matter.
On Monday, we asked the attorney general the status of the report. She promised to check and let us know.
We are still waiting.
We suspect we will be waiting a while if the PLP gets back in office.

LOI

The controversy that surrounded Renward Wells' signing of a letter of intent (LOI) with Stellar Waste To Energy for a reported $600 million waste to energy plant at the New Providence Landfill in 2014 is a matter that we never got any real answers to.
Wells was a PLP at the time and parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Works.
He reportedly signed that controversial document without authorization, leading to the prime minister asking for his resignation.
He refused to resign, and Christie fired him three months into the controversy.
Wells nor the prime minister provided a full report on the LOI signing.
Dr. Hubert Minnis, who at the time was leader of the Official Opposition, also demanded answers.
Wells fell out with the prime minister and the PLP, and in 2015, he joined the FNM.
With Wells on his team, Minnis could not risk anything embarrassing coming to light.
He no longer had a political interest in continuing to demand answers.
When Wells was still an FNM, Minnis asked a number of questions about the LOI in the House of Assembly. Those questions were still on the House's agenda when Parliament was dissolved.
As such, the LOI issue remains one of the big mysteries this term.
In a related matter, the Christie administration also failed to make public the contract Renew Bahamas had to develop a recycling facility at the landfill.
Renew has since pulled out of the project.
Constant fires at the landfill remain a key issue as the election approaches.

'Toggie' and 'Bobo' contract claims

During the mid-year budget debate a year ago, Montagu MP Richard Lightbourn said he had information that the men at the center of a murder for hire plot that allegedly targeted members of Save The Bays have or had government contracts.
The names Livingston "Toggie" Bullard and Wisler "Bobo" Davilma became household names after Louis Bacon, the wealthy Lyford Cay neighbor of fashion mogul Peter Nygard, and several other members of Save The Bays alleged Nygard paid Bullard and Davilma to carry out the murder plot.
Lightbourn said sources in the Ministry of Works told him that the men had monthly cleaning contracts of $10,000 with the ministry.
He also said he had information that at least one of the men also has Crown land.
At the time, the prime minister, who has responsibility for Crown land, said one of the parents of Bullard or Davilma was granted Crown land or a lease, but he could not say if either man had been granted land.
Christie said if either of the men had been granted Crown land it would have been before his time.
The prime minister said he would get the information and report to the House of Assembly.
He never made any such report.

A right to know

Christie and his Cabinet have proven to be an indisciplined bunch who disregard the public's right to know and who often insult our intelligence with promises they seemingly have no intention of fulfilling.
Many times when we ask questions, we know we are wasting our time.
Their failure to demonstrate a commitment to transparency has turned many people against them.
It is shameful that heading into the election, the public is in the dark on many matters it should know about.
It's as if much of the public information has gone down a black hole.
They are not accountable enough. They are not transparent enough. They are far from progressive in their administration of public affairs. Many are concerned about what would transpire with another five years of the PLP.
They have every right to be concerned.

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