By The Free National Movement

We in the Free National Movement, along with a majority of Bahamians, are simply tired of the constant barrage of excuses made by the PLP government for their failings, one after the other, in their duty to govern The Bahamas effectively and productively.

Hardly a week has passed since the present government took office in 2002, that this Cabinet Minister, or the next, has not gone public with an excuse for some public duty which did not take place, under their watch, when it ought to have.

There is hardly an occasion upon which the Prime Minister, even when embarked on bringing a positive message to the people, does not seize frantically at every opportunity to criticise what went on before and to offer an excuse why his government has not produced in a particular area.

Excuses, excuses, excuses every day. That is non-governance by excuse, and that simply will not do, especially for a nation of people who, from 1992 to 2002, received from their elected government not excuses, but vibrant performance and fulfilled promises.

By contrast, the present Government seems not to understand that they have been given a mandate to govern The Bahamas, and the Bahamian people have a right to expect performance for their trust. Performance, not a constant list of reasons why the Government cannot perform.

The big problem, of course, is that the present PLP government has no comprehensive programme or policy by which, day by day, the government is scheduled to perform for the people, which is why the Prime Minister is constantly appointing commissions and committees of this and that, under the weak guise of "consultative democracy".

Even the Hon. Paul Adderley, a former PLP Cabinet Minister under the autocratic regime of Sir Lynden Pindling and who was a leading advisor to Prime Minister Perry Christie in the compilation of the present Cabinet, publicly stated recently that Christie's style of consultative governance will not work, because Bahamians have come to expect and support a "strong leader."

The Free National Movement, on the other hand, followed a firm and documented policy for the overall development of The Bahamas, and while the FNM as the government, where appropriate, pointed out the inefficiencies, shortcomings, failings, and corruptive influences of the first PLP administration, the FNM did not use those as excuses, but got on with the job of moving The Bahamas and its people bravely and productively into the 21st century.

A case in point with regard to this PLP Government's constant excuses instead of performance sprang to the front pages last week when Transport and Aviation Minister Glennys Hanna-Martin blamed predecessor governments for the utter traffic mess in which New Providence finds itself today.

So there we go again. Excuses, excuses, excuses for non-government and non-performance. What incompetence!

The fact of the matter is that when the PLP took office as the Government in 2002, they failed and refused to continue to press into action a very cooperative and effective New Providence Road Development Plan already put in place by the FNM Government, with adequate funding arranged through a loan agreement with the Inter American Development Bank.

Under that programme, the FNM Government commissioned a Canadian firm to conduct a full and comprehensive traffic study of New Providence.

Based on that study, the Government moved with purpose to put into place methods and systems and changes which would alleviate much of the traffic problems.

That programme included, for example, the proper maintenance of traffic lights, so that not only the lights would continue to be in working condition, but there would be constant monitoring and adjustment of the timing of traffic lights to suit and to reflect changing traffic flows and trends in specific areas.

Today, with that sensible plan apparently neglected, traffic lights in New Providence are in a state of horrendous malfunction and misuse, and as a result Bahamian motorists must experience delay and exasperation with each waking day.

That visionary FNM three-year New Providence Road Improvement Project called for the creation of additional road corridors to be laid throughout New Providence to alleviate traffic congestion. It was more than the Harrold Road corridor, but focussed on moving traffic to and from the fast growing areas of the Southern area of the island.

Additionally, under that programme, between 1992 and 2002 the FNM Government undertook extensive redevelopment of the infrastructure in other areas of New Providence as and where necessary, inclusive of the reversal of traffic on Bay Street and Shirley Street to avoid turning conflicts at intersections and accommodate the increased traffic flow eastward to the new Paradise Island Bridge.

That was a Government in action, performing rather than posturing, working out a designed plan, rather than making excuses and blaming a previous administration.

By this juncture the programme instituted by the FNM Government should have been just about completed, and residents of New Providence ought to have been enjoying a less stressful experience.

However, the new PLP Government which came to office in 2002 simply cannot or will not get back on that sensible and progressive track established by the FNM, except perhaps for the Harold Road expansion, which is limping along, with progress frustrated primarily by political and official interference.

Yet completely ignoring that fundamental three-year study and report for which the Bahamian people paid and which the FNM Government started aggressively to implement, the present Minister of Transport and Aviation has the gall to stand in public and blame the PLP's predecessor in government for failing, as she put it, "to comprehensively approach and develop policies to correct and control the existing traffic problems throughout New Providence.

And so, not only is this PLP Government making excuse after excuse for its failure to perform, but is lying to the Bahamian people, pushing aside the facts, such as those regarding the three-year New Providence Road Improvement Project they found in place when they came to office.

That same Cabinet Minister has also complained publicly about the bus system in New Providence and what she referred to as the "indiscriminate" granting of franchises.

Does this Minister have a clue as to how and why the present utter confusion and dysfunction in the public transportation system came about, or is this another classic case of the PLP Government making excuses instead of focusing on solutions?

The fact of the matter is that prior to 1992 the first PLP Government, with a total disregard for potential chaos on New Providence streets, used jitney franchises as political tools both to reward their politically faithful and to try and woo others to the PLP side.

When the FNM came to office we were obliged to try and correct that injustice by granting franchises to those deserving Bahamian applicants who had been victimised by the PLP, but even in so doing the FNM kept forever in mind the Report and the recommendations of the New Providence Road Improvement Project.

Today the PLP has no such focus or policy or direction, and so, as the Minister says, there is chaos and confusion.

But in this and in all other matters relating to the public's interests and to orderly development, it is a matter of effective governance, and no amount of excuses will ever take the place of good government.

When motorists in New Providence come to a traffic light which continues to malfunction, or the potholes in the street become wider and deeper with each heavy rain, or the time it takes to travel from South Beach to town becomes longer and longer each day, or jitneys on the same route speed dangerously past one another, the evidence is crystal clear – the PLP Government has utterly failed to deal effectively with the traffic problems in the island.

No excuses by the Minister of Transport and Aviation, or by any other member of the PLP Government, can possibly hide that painful and shameful fact.

(Please visit our website at www.freenationalmovement.org or write to us at P.O. Box N-10713, Nassau, Bahamas or email us at fnm@coralwave.com)