I would like to add my two cents to the escalating discourse on bleachers; I thank you for affording me space in your newspaper. <\/P><\/p>\n
It certainly does not matter if Junkanoo this season made money or not; it does not matter whether those (stupid, borrowed that adjective from King Eric) bleachers were filled to capacity on Boxing Day and New Year’s; it does not matter that the Prime Minister praised publicly the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture. It does not matter! <\/P><\/p>\n
What does matter to me and a burgeoning number of taxpayers is why those bleachers were rented for more than they could have been bought for. <\/P><\/p>\n
This has got to be asininity at its finest! <\/P><\/p>\n
When the Minister first announced that the bleachers were coming, he said that they were procured just about free of charge … the Ministry only had to pay the freight on them from Canada. <\/P><\/p>\n
From that time, just about every other day, there was some announcement on the bleachers – the price and terms, however, kept changing. <\/P><\/p>\n
Finally the country is stuck with a bill for one fat million dollars… and I’m sure when the final figure is given it will be much more than a million. <\/P><\/p>\n
This wanton waste is at a time when there is a reported shortfall in revenue of 200 million dollars; at a time when the country needs to practice austerity; at a time when there is uncertainty in the world – the looming U.S. war with Iraq – is certain to further negatively impact on our economy. <\/P><\/p>\n
I am not against Junkanoo; it’s our pride and joy – Minister Wisdom, though, showed no wisdom at all in spending more than a million dollars to rent bleachers for Junkanoo – our prime cultural festival that Bahamians prefer enjoying just milling around – swinging and swaying to that good Junkanoo music, if you please – not perched on a bleach as if one was watching a baseball game or a movie at the theater. <\/P><\/p>\n
This is certainly a bad start for the Christie government, and this could very well be the scandal of the year. <\/P><\/p>\n
Bahamians should cry out en mass; Wisdom should be fired before January 15; an independent investigation should be carried out. <\/P><\/p>\n
Bahamians would not let this one be swept under the carpet. It’s too blatant – I smell a rat! <\/P><\/p>\n
Yours etc., <\/P><\/p>\n
Yvonne Green <\/P><\/p>\n
Letter To The Editor, The Nassau Guardian<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Minister Wisdom showed no wisdom at all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240908,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240175\/revisions\/240908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}