Does govt care?

During last week’s House debate on the extension of the country’s state of emergency, the sentiment that government appears to lack empathy and care for the Bahamian people became a point of contention between parliamentarians.

Both on their feet and from their seat, some government members registered their strong disagreement with and personal offense to, such a viewpoint.

On a basic human level their responses are understandable, because a politician who hears such a sentiment would invariably interpret it as an attack on his or her character, and a depiction that he or she is an inherently callous or evil person.

Such an interpretation generally puts individuals on the defensive, but government parliamentarians would do well to put their emotions about the sentiments of many Bahamians to the side, so as to productively focus on what the Bahamian people are feeling, and why.

Regardless of how an individual member of Parliament feels about his or her people and the state of the nation, it is the way one’s administration interacts with the people that ultimately determines whether all members are collectively branded as an uncaring government.

Failure to appreciate this and make the appropriate adjustments will only widen what is an inarguably festering chasm between the Minnis administration and the Bahamian people.

Where you stand versus where you sit

The country’s unemployment rate triggered largely by the effects of COVID-19, was estimated last year to be upwards of a staggering 40 percent.

That estimate does not take account of those who were underemployed.

Such a historic level of joblessness and financial insecurity has sparked untold suffering and put households on the brink.

Bahamians above the poverty line who were already struggling to make ends meet prior to COVID-19 and Hurricane Dorian before it, have been further pushed into dire straits, particularly with the cost of consumables – such as food soaring to record highs since the start of the pandemic.

But while Bahamians struggle with joblessness and unemployment assistance that barely scratches the surface of most needs, most of the politicians they elected are not suffering the kinds of insecurity as are many of their constituents.

Government MPs must take stock of what that kind of dynamic does to the psyche of Bahamians during the ongoing pandemic.

Regardless of how meager our parliamentarians consider their salaries to be, MPs and senators who hold ministerial posts still take home a combined salary that is in the top ten percent of the country’s annual household wage earnings.

And MPs outside of Cabinet with government jobs in executive posts, have a take home pay of around $70,000 annually — more than the take-home pay of most Bahamians.

Though some MPs may argue that a good portion of their salary goes to providing aid to constituents, the difference is that such disbursements are a choice, whereas a Bahamian who has had his or her wages slashed, has no choice in what one’s pay check will look like, if there is a pay check at all.

Unlike governments in the region and around the world that offered their pound of flesh by way of salary cuts for ministers as a show of solidarity for the hardship COVID-19 restrictions have brought about, the Minnis administration opted not to make the same sacrifice.

While government ministers over the last 10 months have stood insisting that Bahamians buckle down and accept that they must suffer loss in the interest of public health, they sit in an income bracket many of their constituents did not enjoy prior to the twin terrors of Dorian and COVID, and sit in a seat of income security at the expense of taxpayers that most taxpayers do not enjoy now.

The point is not that our parliamentarians should not expect to be paid during disasters, but that when one sits in a space of relative comfort not enjoyed by the majority in a crisis, one must be humble in the place he or she stands.

That place of standing is the Parliament, where long-suffering Bahamians continue to watch their representatives engage in raucous self praise, useless finger-pointing, and the ever present implicit and at times explicit narrative, that the Bahamian people ought to be grateful for all the administration has done for them.

This type of interaction with the citizenry sends the message that whatever government accomplishes is not what the Bahamian people are entitled to or deserve, but rather what government is benevolent enough to provide.

We recognize that campaign season is upon us, but Bahamians being constantly reminded of the millions in their taxpayer dollars directed to social and business support, must be balanced against the fact that if government orders the closure of businesses, it has little choice but to direct the people’s money toward losses the people will incur.

The provision of unemployment and business assistance is not a favor done by the government for the people, but it is rather a duty executed in a climate of crisis wherein MPs simply cannot and should not expect endless rounds of applause.

The reason is obvious: many Bahamians are more consumed with survival, their children’s education and the pressures of financial insecurity, than with patting their representatives on the back for doing the job for which they were hired.

Taxpayer money directed to COVID-related social assistance is the people’s money working for them, but it is unfortunately insufficient to cap the hardship and anguish of prolonged joblessness and underemployment for many Bahamians.

That anguish is multiplied on Abaco and Grand Bahama, which were in the throes of weathering the misery of mass casualties, homelessness, joblessness and displacement for six months prior to the start of COVID-19 restrictions — conditions still endured by many storm victims.

It is why Bahamians who do not know what tomorrow will bring for them and their families react with indignation to seeing their MPs pound the tables in self-aggrandizement as things around them fall apart, and revel in the power of the people who have been widely disempowered by forces beyond their control.

When government behaves as though it is entitled to get what it wants regardless of whether the people are getting what they need, the title of “uncaring” is inescapable.

Squandering good fortune

There is an African proverb that says you cannot feed your donkey only when you need to ride it.

An interpretation thereof is you cannot neglect the thing that takes you where you need to go, and expect it to be of good use to you whenever you want use of it.

What takes a government where it needs to go is public trust, which is developed by keeping one’s word, and by respecting the public enough to be open and transparent when one’s word is being kept, as well as on occasions when a promise must be deferred.

The distrust many Bahamians feel toward the administration in bad economic times is a direct result of squandered fortunes during better days when the Free National Movement (FNM) was ushered in on an overwhelming mandate, but soon demonstrated an attitude toward governance that was both inconsistent with the FNM’s standard, and incongruent with what voters anticipated.

There seemed to be a thinking that the wide margin of victory meant the government did not need to work to earn the people’s trust, and this apparent thinking eventually snowballed into a disposition of contempt toward voters whose rejection of the Christie administration more so than a desire for a Minnis-led FNM, resulted in a 35-4 win for the now governing party.

The Minnis administration needed to build public trust in its own right as opposed to coasting on the record of previous FNM administrations, but that proverbial donkey was neglected, and now that the administration needs it to take it to its intended destination in the pandemic and beyond, it is finding out that this donkey kicks.

During moments of crisis, citizens tend to rally around their leaders, and Bahamians did so at the outset of the pandemic; but the frayed thread of public trust prior to COVID-19 could not withstand the weight of decisions taken by the competent authority that triggered confusion, outrage and cries of favoritism.

Now that experimental COVID-19 vaccines approved for emergency use are set to arrive and be administered in-country, public trust essential for a productive mass vaccination initiative is at a level that is likely to prove detrimental.

To be sure, questions and concerns regarding COVID-19 vaccinations would exist regardless of which party was in power, and in many cases have merit that ought not be dismissed or derided, particularly by politicians unlearned in the science and available data on marketed mRNA vaccines.

Nevertheless, convincing Bahamians to submit to COVID-19 vaccinations will require among other factors, a level of public trust in government that the administration has unfortunately failed to engender and earn.

This is a critical example of why securing public trust must never be taken for granted.

Beyond COVID-19, when the Bahamian people feel their voices are unheard, their aspirations are unappreciated and their struggles are undervalued, they will accuse their government of being uncaring.

And once that sentiment sweeps the population, as indeed it has, it can be difficult if not impossible to dial it back, since late attempts at pledge fulfillment and pre-election gift-giving would be widely viewed as attempts to feed the donkey the electorate has lost interest in being.

Does government care? The administration insists the answer is yes.

But in politics, the perception of the people rather than the way politicians believe the people ought to perceive things, is reality.

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