With this in mind, we anticipate that the current administration will be called upon sooner rather than later to put in place a real set of austerity plans.
These plans must call on those who are – in the cat-bird seat – to take a cut to their accustomed way of living. Here we reference all those people whose employment is laden with not only the car and the gas, but with other perks included.
The government might be well-advised to review these practices, find where there can be pruning – and then go to work with the shears.
The current administration might be well advised to see to it that each and every government corporation should undertake their own pruning and purging – with a view to stemming any unnecessary outflow of money.
Indeed, we are getting the sense that most Bahamians are convinced that – no matter how things ultimately turn out – the days are over when money flowed like water.
Instead, we see the emergence of a regime where very penny earned was treated as if it was precious. Such is this nation’s dependency on external forces that some serious attention could and should be put on increasing domestic production of goods and services.
The government must – as a matter of the most urgent priority – do all that it can to jump-start this nation’s moribund agricultural sector.
We consider it axiomatic that the health and well being of a people do constitute the essence of that nation’s wealth. None of this hits the mark when or if a nation or people are parasitically dependent upon others for things like food, energy and technology.
Sadly, this so-called ‘great little nation’ of ours is utterly dependent on outsiders for most of the goods it consumes, with the saving grace that for more than half a century, it has been able – thanks to a vibrant foreign sector – to find the money needed to pay for the things it consumes.
With change in the air, there is a sense we are getting that indicates that the end is near for much of this ‘easy’ money.
In this regard, a new day is dawning – a day when hard work and human ingenuity would matter most.
Clearly, qualities such as these will be sorely needed, moving forward.
We are reminded of one of Senator Eddison Key’s proclamations to the effect that he and the administration he happens to serve have a plan.
As the Senator puts it, "We want to turn that land over to persons who are serious about farming and food production. Our aim is to turn Andros into the breadbasket of The Bahamas."
Tellingly, Mr. Key waxed prophetic as he declaimed, "I see Andros as the food bank of The Bahamas…with packing houses and canneries; food being processed, packed and shipped out in 40-foot containers on fast ferries to Nassau, Abaco, Grand Bahama, Exuma and elsewhere, including for export."
We want to believe.
But evidently, faith is not enough – someone has got to get the ball rolling.
The government is the only entity that has heft and authority sufficient to the task ahead.
The old regime where government would borrow and borrow to keep this or that white elephant of a corporation well-fed is or should be a thing of the past.
Just as evident is the fact that there is currently blazing a major fiscal crisis of the state in today’s Bahamas.
Business as usual cannot be sustained.
As the saying goes, something has got to give.
Clearer still is the urgency in the moment for the Bahamas to look again at all its options, identify its portfolio of assets, stack this up against its liabilities [and commitments] – and thereafter try to find a way of doing things more efficiently.
The urgency in the moment is for Bahamians to understand that this is not the time for bickering, bitching and infighting.
We pull together or we fail – one after the other.
It is really as simple as that.
We are absolutely convinced that the time is now for all stake-holders to do they must to so steady things that we can – as a people – make the kinds of investments needed in order to keep things together.
In the absence of such a resolve, things are set to fall apart.
