by Rick Lowe

Before the May general election the PLP (the Opposition at the time), were promising to rescue at least 1,100 people that had defaulted on their mortgages or headed for default because of the bad world-wide economy. Heck two prominent PLP businessmen were even insisting there was no downside.

Mind you, there was no shortage of bad policy ideas from the FNM Government and fledgling DNA party back then either.

As one Bahamian banker said at the time:

"They are at best duplicitous. And they keep the people, their followers in particular, “in the dark” rather than lift them up by putting them first…..we must decide what we want to be.

"Their mortgage proposal amounts to a massive bailout that would create significant debt levels for us ….the debt that they are up in arms about. ….it’s a real socialist agenda creating a “welfare state and never allowing us to take responsibility for ourselves……

This was all before reality set in and the PLP won the election and changed their plan.

As it turns out, "the Ministry of Finance received 414 queries for assistance but to date only 139 of them fulfil the requirements." (The Tribune, Tuesday, November 20, 2012)

And so now the government is asking people to appeal the decision on their relief application as they "will also look at adjusting certain aspects of the initiative to meet individual needs."

If this all wasn't so serious it would be worth a chuckle. If the PLP hadn't created the controversy in the first place, they would not have to continually shift the goal posts to appear to have "helped" some folks. But as the American Theologian Tryon Edwards noted; Most controversies would soon be ended, if those engaged in them would first accurately define their terms, and then adhere to their definitions.

Meanwhile, those people that thought they could receive something for nothing as a result of the election rhetoric are still hurting, but should never have been convinced there was a free lunch in the first place.