From my unenlightened perspective at least, the financial outlook for our country is truly grim.
Multiple downgrades from various financial agencies have reduced our credit rating to one notch above Junk status and the National debt has increased by $581.4 million despite more than $300 million in VAT income being collected to date, supposedly to pay it down.
A senior government medical official has recently admitted that $100 million of their current annual healthcare budget is wasted as the Public Hospitals Authority issues a $25 million bond offering, the second such offering in two years, to refinance and repay their bank loans.
Still the government is rushing headlong to implement a National Health Insurance which, according to the Bahamas Insurance Association and other experts in that sector, could cost the country as much as $900 million.
Compounding this already severe haemorrhaging, DPM Brave Davis today confirmed that BEC is losing $20-30million per year and is “close to being insolvent” with another $600 million required to pay off BEC’s existing debts and a further $450 million needed to bring their infrastructure up to acceptable standards. Mr. Davis gave no indication however as to how this money would be raised.
And let us not forget the at least $60 million pledged in hurricane relief and those other countless millions already squandered on the likes of Visits to the Vatican, Junkanoo Carnival, BAMSI, Urban Renewal 2 and Bank of the Bahamas just to name a few.
The Bahamas seems to be on a roller coaster ride to financial ruin with the driver asleep at the wheel, with no seat belt, airbag nor brakes.
Sincerely,
Ian Mabon
November 24, 2015
