I am angry about what has happened to Bermuda

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 3: I was surprised by Mr Diallo Rabain’s article in these pages last Wednesday.

He repeated what has become the Government mantra this election, the notion that the One Bermuda Alliance does nothing but criticise, and has no plan to fix what ails Bermuda. What a nonsense!

He also said pretty clearly that One Bermuda Alliance legislators weren’t worth the money the public pays them. That’s a nasty thing to say. It has no purpose other than to smear us in the eyes of the electorate.

Why can’t our political participants be grown-ups, and focus on being the best we can be in doing the public’s work? Why can’t we leave lies and smears and race out of it?

Here’s what I want to say about Mr Rabain’s column, and I will stick to facts.

I spent last week closing down my shop in Hamilton. I tried to keep it open for as long as I could, but there comes a time when you have to face reality, and that time came for me this summer. I couldn’t afford to keep it open any longer.

I know that I am one of thousands of people who have lost their livelihood as a result of the Government’s management of Bermuda’s economy.

Businesses have been closed, people have been laid off or lost their jobs. The construction industry has been decimated. International business has shrunk. Hotels are struggling to keep their doors open. Shops have closed. The shrinkage of the workforce has left offices and houses and apartments empty all around Bermuda.

As a result, there are people desperate to find some kind of hustle to feed their families. People have had to take their children out of school or college and sell some of their possessions to make ends meet. Proud people are finding themselves not too proud any longer to look for handouts.

The economy is in tatters. We are being crushed by an enormous debt. Mismanagement, theft, gang killings and robberies are now an almost daily part of the news about this once peaceful and prosperous land of ours.

I am angry about what has happened to Bermuda. I have watched in disbelief as carelessness, foolishness, and theft have all thrived as we have sunk farther and farther into a hole. It is hard to believe that all this has happened, but no one has been or seemingly will be held to account for it, with the possible exception of a couple of civil servants.

We do have a plan

As if unconscious of all this going on around him, Mr Rabain writes to complains that the OBA has no plan.

Actually, we do. We made perhaps a hundred suggestions in our reply to the Throne Speech and in our reply to the Budget this year, for improving the economy, education, health care, policing and other aspects of government. Mr Rabain and other interested members of the public can find those suggestions www.oba.bm.

Our party chairman, Mr Thad Hollis, has pledged to release the entire OBA platform when a date for the election has been given.

Some of our suggestions, like cutting Ministers’ pay, payroll tax relief, holding a referendum on gaming and easing the 60/40 Bermudian/foreign business ownership restriction have been adopted and acted on by the Government. Now the Government is also adopting our policy of streamlining the work permit process.

Among the outstanding measures for repairing the economy that were put forward were:

• Instituting a Spending and Government Efficiency commission.

• Cutting consultants and frequent lavish travel.

• Abolishing the new Procurement Office and creating the Office of the Contractor General who, like the Auditor General, will be appointed by the Governor and not answer to any government minister.

• Suspending term limits for a period of two years, while the matter is thoroughly reviewed.

• Granting any employer a two-year payroll tax exemption for new Bermudian hiring,

• Unclogging the approval process at the Department of Planning to facilitate job-creating projects,

• Reducing business costs by providing incentives and guarantees for electrical co-generation plants.

• Reserving 20% of government spending on goods and services with private sector suppliers for small business.

• Requiring Government to pay its bills in less than 30 days.

But let me, on behalf of the electorate, ask another question. What exactly does the PLP plan to do to get us out of the mess we’re in?

Instead of sneering at the OBA, why doesn’t Mr Diallo Rabain write a column explaining to us how his party is going to get Bermuda back on track? He should leave the rhetoric and the spin out of it, just give us the facts.

If he can, that is.

• Gaylynne Cannonier is the One Bermuda Alliance Candidate in Constituency 3, St David’s. She ran the store Foreign Cargo.