$265 Million: Accountability or Political Theatre?

ABAGAIL CARTWRIGHT’S DEAN’S BLUE HOLE

The latest political storm over the National Investment Fund raises an important question—but perhaps not the one the Opposition wants Bahamians to ask.

The FNM looks for every opportunity to spin some sort of narrative that attempts to convince the public that the PLP government is corrupt. It gets their social media trolls outraged and creates theater, and the leader of the opposition, Mr. Michael Pintard, never asks the right questions.

Yes, the public deserves to know how every dollar of public money is used. Absolutely! Transparency is not a favour; it is an obligation of government.

But accountability must work both ways.

The suggestion that money moving through the National Investment Fund automatically represents some financial wrongdoing risks turning a legitimate question into political theatre. The Government has explained that excess borrowing receipts were transferred into the Fund and that significant resources have been directed toward national infrastructure, including the ambitious Family Island Airport Renaissance. These are not abstract numbers. Nothing untoward. They represent airports, runways, terminals and infrastructure intended to connect Bahamians to opportunity.

The Opposition is perfectly entitled to scrutinise the Government. That is democracy.

But scrutiny should demand facts—not insinuations or innuendos.

Perhaps the better question, Mr. Pintard, is not simply, “Where did the money go?” It is: “What did the Bahamian people get for it?”

If the answer is modern infrastructure, improved connectivity, and greater economic opportunity for communities that have too often been treated as afterthoughts, then the Government deserves credit for investing beyond Nassau.

At the same time, Government must welcome the questions, provide the documentation and make the numbers understandable, which they promised they will do because public money belongs to the Bahamian people.

That is accountability—not political noise.

-Abigail Cartwright