Bahama a Promise and Couldn’t Even Pay the Rent
Today’s Tribune report that the Government has failed to escape a $25 million bond default lawsuit is not just a story about numbers. It is a story about how this community has been used, misled, and left behind.
The Obadiah H. Wilchcombe Government Complex in Eight Mile Rock, a building named to honour a man many of us knew and respected, is now the subject of a Supreme Court lawsuit because the Ministry of Finance simply failed to pay its rent. For the last four and a half year, Grand Bahama families have dealt with this carelessness and mismanagement every single day.
Imagine, if the PLP cannot pay rent on a building they named after one of their own, how can we trust them with our money for five more years?
But I want to be direct about something bigger, because this issue affects every family in The Bahamas, not just ours.
This complex was sold to the public as a Public-Private Partnership, a structure the PLP claimed would ease pressure on government finances. It has now appeared in the Government’s own budget documents not as a rental obligation, but as a $33.93 million loan that Bahamian taxpayers must repay.
That is the pattern. Across this country, from the electricity grid to hospital financing to road contracts, this government is signing PPP agreements that carry long-term financial obligations, without telling Bahamians the terms, the risks, or the true cost. The Fiscal Responsibility Council has flagged it, the IMF has raised it, and Fitch has noted the need for transparency. The FNM has been sounding the alarm for months, demanding that these off-book liabilities be brought into the light before the election.
Grand Bahama families know what it means to be left paying a bill they didn’t know was coming. We live with the consequences of decisions made without our input and without our knowledge, we will not accept it again. If the people of West Grand Bahama honour me with their trust, I will go to Parliament and fight every single day for full transparency on every agreement this government has signed on our behalf. I will push for the FNM’s commitment to require every PPP obligation to be publicly reported, so that no future government can hide debt in the shadows while pretending the books are balanced.
The FNM will make sure that Eight Mile Rock and every corner of this constituency is treated as more than a campaign backdrop. Grand Bahama’s time is coming, but it will only come with leadership that is honest, accountable, and actually shows up.
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