In a letter “Bahamian people are facing ‘outright discrimination’” in the August 8th Tribune, Mr. Geoffrey B. Stuart starts by quoting article #26 of the Constitution, “No person shall be treated in a discriminatory manner by any person acting by virtue of any law or in the performance of the functions of any public office or any public authority.”

He then went on to list several examples of discrimination including –

1. “Atlantis gets tariff concessions on its Phase III expansion while the Bahamian public gets no comparable break”, and

2. A foreigner can earn money in the Bahamas, take it out at par and invest it abroad while a Bahamian can take his Bahamian dollar out not at par but at par plus a 25% penalty.

In example #1 Mr. Stuart did recognize the contribution that Atlantis has made and is about to make to the economy…implicitly recognizing a need for incentives to those who create jobs in the Bahamas. He did not identify any job-creating Bahamian investors who were denied such incentives.

His example #2 appears as a case of discrimination; but he does not state that foreigners will not invest in the Bahamas without “repatriation” rights, nor does he say why the country needs such capital controls.

In short he just thinks discrimination is unfair and he wants “those in authority…to correct these anomalies.”

Mr. Stuart should be admonished for the “selectivity” of his discrimination list. For instance, he did not include the following:

1. Some telephone and electricity customers do not pay their bills while others are disconnected when they do not pay their bills on time.

2. Some property owners do not pay their real estate taxes while others do.

3. Some businessmen do not pay their business license fee and others do.

4. Some steal without fear of retribution while others do not; but the latter pay for the cost of stealing through higher prices of everything they buy.

5. Some benefit directly from grossly padded Government payrolls and others do not…they simply pay for them.

These acts discriminate in favor of the politically powerful and connected.

Learn from the past.

Mr. Stuart did not indicate what “those in authority” should do. For instance, he could have advised “those in authority” to learn from the past.

The Bahamas experienced a period of prosperity in the late 1990s that had eluded the country for decades. Furthermore, it resulted in a significant redistribution of income in favor of the lower 60 per cent of households. That redistribution was the exact opposite of the actual experience of the 1980s when the distribution of household income became more unequal.

Yet politicians of both parties will not recognize this reality and take actions consistent with that reality.

� The former Prime Minister justified the introduction of the Labour Bills before Parliament with the argument that the common man did not participate in the prosperity and his proposed legislation would get them what they deserved.

� The PLP in its 2002 campaign implied that if elected, it would redress the balance between Bahamian and foreign interests with the clear implication that the latter were favored by the FNM. Unfortunately, the retention of this judgment after the election was a major reason that it took “those in authority” more than a year to deal constructively with foreign investors. It was as if a photo opportunity with Fidel Castro in Havana was more important than establishing a visible and constructive business environment in Nassau.

Have courage and take risks.

The present Government is the product of a system where --

The core principle of governance has been the growth and maintenance of the political power and the material welfare of the governing few…the “All For We, Baby” crowd…the political elite…the oligarchy.

In general this principle is corrupting; and corruption is “neutral” insofar as it exists in both developed and underdeveloped countries. However, in underdeveloped countries it is more pervasive and destructive. According to Tunku Abdul Aziz, the Vice-Chairman of Transparency International, “Corruption continues to deny the poor, the marginalized and the least educated members of every society, the social, economic and political benefits that should properly accrue to them, benefits that are taken for granted in societies that have managed to shake off the yoke of corruption.”

Mexico is a good example of the difficulty of loosening this yoke. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2002 ranks 102 countries on an index of 1 through 10. Mexico is 58th with a point score of 3.6. For reference Finland is number 1 with a score of 9.7, the UK is number 10 with a score of 8.7 and the US is number 16 with a score of 7.7.

Mexico has made limited progress in removing the taint of corruption as reported in the New York Times Magazine of August 10, 2003.

� “Francisco Barrio, Mexico’s former anticorruption czar, estimates that graft costs his country 9.5 percent of it’s G.D.P.—twice the education budget”.

� “Gil Diaz changed the behavior of customs workers be removing opportunities for theft and bribery and increasing the probability of their being caught. In short, he made illegal acts difficult.”

� Other government servants “work so slowly, sloppily and arbitrarily that people see no hope of getting the services they are entitled to without offering a tip ‘para el refresco,’ literally ‘for a soda.’”

� Seventy years of the centralized power of a single political party effectively eliminated a civil society with independent organizations that limit and restrain the power of the political elite. “General fed-upness is a useless emotion unless there is some channel for turning it into action, and there is none.”

Mexico is an improving but still sad situation.

In the case of the Bahamas, its centrally managed and controlled society make it difficult to change as is evidenced by the inaction of the past year. This can be seen in two examples:

Education. If the Bahamas is to compete in the world it must improve the quality of its school leavers; they must get significantly better at reading, writing, speaking and calculating. Education reform is extremely difficult…there must be new curriculum, better teachers, more supportive parents and greater student discipline.

This must be accomplished over the resistance of those with vested interests in the present system. Unfortunately, education reform is a 20 year and not a 2 year program. In the short run education reform produces disappointed teachers, students and parents who cannot adjust; this is not as attractive, for instance, as the immediate political and material benefits to the political elite that come from spending on Government buildings.

Privatization. For years the International Monetary Fund and others have been advising the Government to privatize the state-owned utilities. The Government has faced reality with respect to the hotels and the manufacture of potable drinking water; it sold the hotels and it buys its manufactured potable water from a private corporation. In these instances it somehow accepted reality.

However, it strongly resists privatization of “BTC and Beyond.” The proposed BTC transaction is actually the sale of a minority interest and not true privatization; and the IMF in its most recent Consultation found that there are no plans beyond that. Privatization means a loss of direct political control over jobs; this is resisted even though privatization will mean a larger economy with a greater number of jobs.

The country has reached a moment in its development when “those in authority” must change their principle of governance…they need the courage and conviction to act in the long-term interests of the country and not solely for the power and material gain of themselves, the “We”.