Just when you thought Parliamentarians could not come up with any more ludicrous ideas to spend tax dollars, they now want to construct a new building to house Parliament.
With the country in debt approaching $5 Billion, one Parliamentarian suggested if it cost $50 million to build the government can find the money and they could pay for it becuase it would be a valuable tourist attraction.
Another indicated the building is too old and ill suited for their grand design.
The Nassau Institute has a hard hitting piece about it here…
So I thought I would do a quick search, and found that the Bahamas Parliament was built in 1815 and the British Parliament (first structure was destroyed) was completed in 1870.
I guess the present buildings in Parliament Square here have no historical value?
Seems that this is simply another distraction rather than concentrating on doing their jobs.
Rick if the Bahamas has a debt approaching $5 Billion for 350,000 persons, how will it ever be paid off, as you know I live on Ontario Canada and we are just about turned ourselves inside out over our debt of $252 Billion for our population of just over 13.5 million persons, the Canada wide debt is $610 Billion for just under 35 million persons (18,000.00 per person ), Rick when is the axe going to fall and cut off all sources of future borrowing and funding, who is in control there ?
Regarding this idiotic proposal by the inept ruling PLP party that wasting millions of dollars on a new parliament building would be a tourist attraction and charging them admission fees – Old and historic buildings are sources of wonder, history and the length and breadth of time. They are intriguing and architecturally much more historically interesting and appealing – and visitors old and new wonder what happened in those honourable and esteemed halls and the honourable and esteemeed members of government who gave their time and effort and crafted laws and regulations in the oldest sitting parliament in this hemisphere.
A new building has absolutely no historic value, adds nothing to the present landscape and reflects nothing of the past, and the only point of wonder will be why this unnecessary and probably unattractive building was needed or constructed in the first place – except to hand over money to political favourites and to menace our landscape with an unnecessary and unimportant edifice which has no meaning at all for anyone – and will be the concrete evidence of greed, wasteage and self indulgence of a noteably wasteful and innefectual government.
If they did indeed relocate Parliament I’d be willing to bet the old buildings would become the newest derelict property on Bay St and probably end up like the Royal Vic.
Well put Ludicrous.. What should we expect from a government on the edge of financial bankruptcy..
What perhaps really is needed is a comprehensive maintenance program to repair and maintain the government buildings we already have.. Just look at our Post Off ce where for over five years the “I” is missing from buildings name.. Exterior walls are cracking and the external facade need a good painting.. How many times do you go into a government building only to see the building is dirty and in disrepair.. Lets first take care of what we have before embarking on new projects which we cannot afford..