PETER TURNQUEST HAS NO IDEA WHAT HE IS DOING OR SAYING
While the Cabinet was laughing away and boasting about what a good job they were doing, the Hotel Workers in the country were preparing to go on strike. Their vote was overwhelming to do so. Those who visited the scene of the vote heard the most caustic vitriol about the Government and the failure of them to grasp the real problems of those who they govern. One after the next on the line, former FNMs swore that they would not vote for these leaders again.
Peter Turnquest is so bumptious that it is unbelievable. He lives his life in a bubble and has this sense of moral rectitude which is offensive. He gets up on his high horse lecturing and hectoring on the mighty principles on which only he can stand. There are none so righteous in his estimation than himself.
That is perhaps the real reason he has fallen into error. The figures which he gave simply don’t add up. Just take one which the Leader of the Opposition Philip Davis pointed out. Mr. Turnquest said that there was a 42 per cent shortfall in the revenue up to the first ten months of the fiscal year. He would have us believe though that he is on target to meet the collections of revenue within the last two months of the year. It does not seem statistically possible. Yet he barreled right along.
The Government also announced just before the budget commutation on Wednesday 29th May that they were hiring two comedians Sawyer Boy and Dasqu to explain the budget in ordinary terms to the people of the country. That is good for the two artists. It is good that they now have work. However, their fellow Bahamians have an issue. They have no work or those who are working do not get a living wage. Consider this: a conch snack today costs 15 dollars. A drink cost another 2 dollars. That means almost 20 dollars for a meal. How does someone who is making 210 dollars per week, the minimum wage make it?
One laugh we all had at Peter Turnquest’s expense though was the line at the end of his statement that the era of political favours was over. He should have bitten his tongue. He and his Government just gave Bent Symonette the gift of a contract for 4.5 million dollars to fix up his broken down Towne Centre Mall. Mr. Symonette is a sitting Cabinet minister. It is a shocking act of corruption. Yet Mr. Turnquest stood up and bold facedly said it was not so. You could only laugh. They didn’t need Sawyer Boy for that one.
The Central Bank told us the facts. Last year they did a survey and the survey showed that 50 per cent of those making under 30,000 dollars per year cannot make ends meet at the end of the month. In this country, the supplications for alms is almost overwhelming.
You see that is the picture of life down at the bottom. Then you see Peter Turnquest and his colleagues laughing and joking and talking as if life is but a dream.
For too many people life is not a dream, The cold hard facts are that the country is in bad shape. The evidence is clear. The government cannot meet its obligations. What Peter Turnquest told us on Wednesday last was tissue of lies. It is only a matter of time before this house of cards he has created, this fiction, collapse unfortunately to the detriment of us all.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday, 1st June, 2019 up to midnight: 140,570;
Number of hits for the month of May up to Friday, 31st May, 2019 up to midnight: 691,408;
Number of hits for the year 2019 up to Saturday, 1st June, 2019 up to midnight: 4,188,599.