The budget communication in the House Assembly on Wednesday by Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Honourable Philip Davis is receiving high praises across the length and breadth of The Bahamas.
It has in it a number of firsts which placed the governing Progressive Liberal Party in an enviable position and must now force the opposition to rethink the criticisms of the management of the fiscal affairs of the nation.
The Prime Minister and his team in the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economic Affairs deserve the commendations of the right-thinking Bahamians for producing a balanced budget and the first budgetary surplus in some fifty years. This is something that successive administrations of government sought to do and failed. Even the ardent detractors of the present government must now concede that the Davis administration is managing the Bahamian economy extremely well. The people of The Bahamas probably in time will show their gratitude for these accomplishments.
In his presentation to Parliament, Prime Minister Davis said: “For the very first time since independence, we have finally secured the achievement of a balanced budget. More than a balanced budget — a budget with a surplus.
“Despite all the headwinds we have faced, despite all the hardship, we are now a country on the move. Together, we are confronting our most difficult challenges, the ones that have held us back for too long — and it is the determination and ingenuity of our people that is powering our country’s progress.”
Mr. Davis told the nation in his address, “in our Economic Plan and in our Blueprint for Change, we laid out a detailed vision for recovering, rebuilding, and revolutionizing our country’s economy. We knew we had a big task ahead of us — we knew that rescuing the country from the worst fiscal and economic crises we’d ever faced was going to be a big lift. But we also knew as bad as things were, that recovery could not be the ultimate goal; recovery had to be a stop on the way to something better. Because even in the best of times in the past, too many Bahamians have been left out of our economy.”
There is no doubt that some Bahamians are still facing tough times due to the inflation that the country imports, especially from the United States where we purchase most of our food and necessary supplies for construction. However, even the most politically dishonest in the society must conclude that there has been tremendous improvement in the economic fortunes in the country over the last three-plus years.
As was related in The Bahamas Business and Investment Forum in New York City yesterday, Prime Minister Davis is a leader who is fastidious in his attention to fiscal matters. He has positioned our nation for sustained growth by maintaining strict financial discipline and championing innovative public-private partnerships. The positive indices highlighted by the rating agencies, and the enthusiasm of global fund managers all point to one clear message: The Bahamas is good for business, and opportunities abound for those who seek progress and wholesome investments.
If the economy is depressed, the Prime Minister would be properly blamed. Now since it is on a solid footing and growing, all Bahamians should give credit to whom it is due: Philip Edward Davis.
