REMARKS BY THE HONOURABLE FRED MITCHELL, M.P FOR 
FOX HILL

OPENING SOCIAL SERVICES OFFICE, DAVIS PLAZA FOX HILL

29^TH SEPTEMBER, 2005 

Mr. Prime Minister, Colleague Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, particularly my constituents of Fox Hill.  Much respect to you.  I am delighted and honoured to welcome you to the heart of the Fox Hill village and the centre around which the Fox Hill Constituency is built. 

Fox Hill Constituency is very much a tale of two cities.  There is one city at its core that is a Family Island type village, redolent of African culture and tradition.  In that city, there is a need for improvement to its housing stock, its schools, its social welfare.  This is where we stand today.   

The other city of Fox Hill is the upwardly mobile, well off middle class area.  That part has tended to overshadow this part because there are more voters on that part than in this.  Yet the constituency takes its name from this part.  I consider it the heart of Fox Hill and these are the people who support us come what may.  But leaving that aside, here is where we must provide the most help and most hope.   

Prime Minister I remember in 1997 two weeks after the worst defeat the PLP had ever suffered; down to 6 members in the House, the people of this area joined me, 14 of them in a demonstration, against the then new Government, that administration being then at its highest ever in popularity.  I and they suffered abuse of a kind that was unbelievable including from a police officer, assigned to protect us, who kept asking us why we did not go home, but they didn’t, they stayed. 

Mr. Prime Minister, you do not know this lady (I will not call her name); she might be within ear shot today.  She is well known around this village.  Her circumstances and those of her family are severely depressed.  Her house is in need of immediate repair.  You have said it before; that no Bahamian, regardless of their socio-economic level ought to live like that.  While she is the beneficiary of social services, there is simply more that needs to be done by us for one who qualifies as being among the least of our brethren.   

That is why your overarching vision of urban renewal is a great one.  It has already brought help and hope to thousands and we are now working to help this lady.  I mention her for reasons I will come to but one I will mention now.  In 1997 when our Party and George Mackey asked me to come here to Fox Hill, it was she who was so excited that she took me to every house, up and down the streets foretelling that this was the PLP’s man.  I lost that election; we lost, but how can I in those circumstances ever forget her and more importantly the sentiment that she represented. 

Yesterday, Mr. Prime Minister, after nearly two months of bureaucratic tooing and froing, another constituent came to see Altamese Isaacs, who runs my office as a volunteer, to complain that she had asked for her roof to be repaired and why wasn’t it done.  It appears that because she is unable to produce a lease, this prevents the repairs from being done.   

Mind you our policy is that we must fix the problem, taking people as we find them.  There is no point if the floor is breaking up.  The roof is leaking, the rain is falling, the wind is blowing; winter is coming and it is one year since the hurricane - to be told because you can’t produce a lease for the property on which you have been living for 30 years and $4,000 of expenditure will solve the problem, not to do something.  This is especially since it is clear that she meets the economic means test.   

The case I discussed earlier has a similar issue. 

Mr. Prime Minister, Colleague Ministers, where am I going with this?  I would suggest that maybe there is a disconnect between where we are and the political will which I know you have and which all colleagues have; and what happens in its execution.  You know that I am a staunch advocate of public sector reform as the only way I see to cut through this Gordian knot.  When we run into these problems in the public administration it must be possible to find a way to do something about it, not trot out bureaucratic solipsisms and then move on.  As we say, “lawyer; I’m jail!”  Or in this case; the rain is falling the roof is leaking.   

I do want to thank my colleague Shane Gibson, my dear friend Melanie Griffin.  They have both walked though the community with me.  Repairs are being effected on a number of homes and we are working our way through these two frustrating issues.  Melanie is always there when it appears that the service is not being delivered as it should. 

I am speaking frankly today, not to point any finger but to inspire – and indeed to remind us all: the politicians, the public servants, our political team to recommit ourselves to the fight.  That is what the opening of the new office means.  It is to provide a service for poor people, for people in need and while we can’t give away the people’s money, let us try always to err on their side. 

I hope Mr. Prime Minister that you will use your address to send a strong message of the need for all of us to be more sensitive to the needs of the poor, the needy, the dispossessed, even when some people are angry with us and upset in the way they speak to us.  I told one of our campaign workers that we must realize how difficult it is for some who has always been able to take care of themselves to ask for help.  There seems to be so many roadblocks.  You are already embarrassed to be in the circumstances and then there is someone asking you all your personal business, sometimes asking it in front of other people, sometimes unsolicited advice is being given, other times rude remarks are being made. 

In one of the cases I spoke about, the woman described how persons came to her home, walked through it, took pictures, months ago and still no help and now there is no help because she can’t produce a lease.  She described it this way: “I am already poor.  People already know I have nothing, now everyone knows I have nothing after they came tramping through my house taking pictures.  I feel naked.”  I understand entirely how she feels.   People must be able to keep their dignity and self respect.  These are our people.  They are us and but for the grace of God… 

Just down the road from here is what I hope will be the Fox Hill Community Centre.  I want it to be finished by next summer.  God knows how but it must be done.  Right now, there is no recreation field or cafeteria for the children of Sandilands Primary, nor a facility for an assembly.  When that is completed, there will be a place for an assembly.   

But Prime Minister it is important for another reason and that is, three weeks ago Melanie asked me to provide the names of three (3) people for jobs as case aides.  The requirement for that Government job is five (5) BJC’s; an exam taken when you are 14 years old in the 9^th and 10^th grade.  That’s the age at which my father who was born in 1919 had to leave school and is the mark of the very basic educational foundation.   

Prime Minister in the five pages or so of persons looking for jobs we were hard pressed to find any with 5 BJC’s.  I was depressed.  I am now enlivened and I have spoken to the Minister of Education, but we must rectify that.   Something is wrong with that and it is not with that wide a sample the fault of the citizens.  So the Centre and Sandilands Primary School itself must become a centre for some remedial education.   

And Minister Griffin as the Minister for Women’s Affairs, what further depressed me is the fact that I was told that the reason one person did not take the BJCs was that when it was time for them, the mother could only afford to pay for one child and there was a choice between the boy child and the girl child and the boy child won out.  Surely our system could have fixed that. 

Mrs. Norma Dean, a Fox Hill gal and the daughter of the former Principal and Member of Parliament for Fox Hill Frank Edgecombe is now the principal of Sandilands Primary.  I wish to publicly congratulate her.  She is assisted by Esther Cartwright, the new Vice-Principal. 

Next Wednesday will be nomination day for the school Board elections in this constituency.  I want to encourage civic-minded citizens of goodwill to run and be elected to work with Mrs. Dean to assist in what I consider to be the centerpiece of the future for Fox Hill, the Sandilands Primary School.  We have a job to do to improve and maintain the physical infrastructure, provide after school leaving and homework supervision.  I’m trying to find a way to pay teachers to supervise homework.  We have to work to raise the grade level assessments of our students and begin the work of preparation for BJC’s.  I will be calling more and more religious leaders to assist in this effort to help save and protect Fox Hill. 

My friends we are all impatient for this work to be done. But you must understand that we all face resource issues.  Everything needs to be done yesterday.  But let me assure you in my capacity as Public Service Minister that we cannot continue endlessly with a situation where with everything there is a resource problem.  The well being of the persons we serve is threatened.  Surely, the reputation of the country begins to suffer as being errant and unstable when what is really a resource or money issue causes disruption.   

Now more than ever is a time for a social compact amongst the Government, the workers and the general civic society to work toward a common set of goals and objectives without social disruption.  The social compact can allow a wider discussion on how we are going to pay for and manage of that we demand.  Chief amongst the topics for discussion must be tax policy.   

It behooves the management of the service to be more proactive in its approach to issues, less rigid.  It behooves us in the political directorate to put the process along and make the changes that are necessary but more importantly to improve the quality of the conservations with those who have to, must execute on policies.  This is not a time for politics of opportunism.  Even the opposition must come to realize that without the social compact, without the national dialogue on even the most taboo issues and agreement on common goals, our society will continue to move ahead less quickly than it should. 

Mr. Prime Minister, I think that many of the naysayers who will oppose anything you do have mistaken your civility for weakness.  It is a warning that I have expressed to some of my own directors.  Because I have listened to everyone, and been polite in my responses, do not confuse that with weakness because you will have a surprise coming.   

The time is not as long as it was and there is a good account to be given of all that we have done.  I say again your Urban Renewal Program is a master stroke and I look forward to full implementation in Fox Hill, where it is really badly needed. 

This area is uplifted by the investments of the Davis family and their newly renovated building here in the centre of the village.  I wanted to be sure that their investment succeeded that is why I encouraged BaTelCo to move here to serve Fox Hill, after it was closed by our predecessors in office.  That is why Social Services is expanding in Fox Hill; it remained stagnant under our predecessors.  Poverty grew from 1992 to 2002 and there was no public policy to address it.  New roads have been paved, speed bumps built, maintenance of the parks.  The Festival is better than ever.  But most of all there is the quality of the relationships with the representative that is never far away from the heart and soul of Fox Hill. 

When I travel abroad it is to ensure that The Bahamas is a participating country in the world community and this is done so that we can assure The Bahamian people that their interests are protected.  At the United Nations, at the Organization of American States, at the Summit of The Americas; The Bahamas pledged by agreement and dedication to the Millennium Development Goals, to reduce poverty, to ensure universal access to education, to ensure gender equality, the promotion of the rights of women and a commitment to Sustainable Development. 

Today as we open this office we show, clearly and unmistakably that we are committed to these goals and leading us in that commitment is our one leader.  The Rt. Hon. Perry Christie, we want to salute him on this occasion for his leadership. 

I therefore thank you for coming, for placing this office here and I look forward to the happy receipt of the services it will provide.  

Give thanks!  Give thanks to all.

--  end  --