![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/sharon-turner.jpg\" "\\"sharon-turner\\"")
It was hardly amusing to hear a media house recently report on Prime Minister Christie\u2019s confirmation that he plans to hold a Constitutional referendum in November \u2013 less than two months from now. The news report said \u201cbut this time, it won\u2019t be rushed\u2026\u201d. Won\u2019t be rushed?<\/p>\n
This is already the middle of September. Parliament doesn\u2019t re-convene until October. In order for a Constitutional referendum to be put to the public for a vote, the question(s) must be presented to Parliament and must pass both the House and Senate by at least a 2\/3 majority vote. So no matter when the referendum is ultimately put to the people, it would only be at the most a few weeks\u2019 space of time between the House and Senate vote and whenever the public\u2019s vote is called in November.<\/p>\n
Trying to educate an entire nation on changes to the nation\u2019s Supreme Law in only a couple of weeks \u2013 without the ballot questions even being known yet \u2013 and this process (being handled just like the January opinion poll on numbers) \u201cwon\u2019t be rushed\u201d?<\/p>\n
The Constitution is not a comic strip or candy crush \u2013 nothing about changing our Supreme Law should ever be subject to levity or a couple weeks\u2019 rush.<\/p>\n
Plus, there are other more urgent Bills for national education that the government is already late in tabling, the most important of which being its Bill on Value Added Tax \u2013 which it said it would table before the House\u2019s summer recess but failed to do so.<\/p>\n
It must also table a repeal of the Electricity Act, in order to facilitate its planned privatization of BEC which the Prime Minister says he plans to wrap up by year\u2019s end. This is already mid-September. October-November-December = year\u2019s end. Not a word has been said yet about the specific legislation planned to enable this abrupt change to BEC.<\/p>\n
It does not serve our nation well to rush amendments to our Supreme Law. Proper consultation and thorough education takes time. The government rushed the public to the polls just nine months ago for what it called a \u201creferendum\u201d on gaming \u2013 and we see how that turned out.<\/p>\n
This schizoid approach to governance is further fomenting the atmosphere of confusion, frustration and angst that is teeming in our country. Rushing the public to the polls on such a serious matter of Constitutional amendments amidst this kind of atmosphere is not in the nation\u2019s best interests.<\/p>\n
Sharon Turner
\nwww.thereal242.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prime Minister Christie confirmed that he plans to hold a Constitutional referendum in November \u2013 less than two months from now. The news report said \u201cbut this time, it won\u2019t be rushed\u2026\u201d. Won\u2019t be rushed?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":[14],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-39335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions","tag-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39335","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\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}