Just when you thought the power bills couldn’t get any higher without including a personal thank-you note from BPL and an “I.O.U. for Your Sanity” – surprise! – the government has decided to up the ante with a little something extra: a growing national deficit. Yes, while the Bahamian people are sweating under the weight of their electricity bills and praying their fridges don’t turn into decorative boxes, the country’s finances are also melting under the blazing sun of fiscal fantasy.

This, of course, brings us to the dazzling optimism of the New Day government and its Minister of Housing and Energy, who made that promise – you know the one. Lower power costs, stable energy supply, and national fiscal responsibility – you could almost hear the harp music in the background. But like any fairytale told after a few too many Cabinet luncheons, that promise now floats somewhere between “misleading” and “breathtakingly detached from reality.”

And then, there’s the pièce de résistance.

“PM’s ‘surplus’ was way off” – The Nassau Guardian

Way off? That’s like saying the Titanic had a slight link.

Let’s review the drama. Back in May – ah, May! A simpler time when applause echoed through the halls of Parliament and Prime Minister Philip “Bullish Budget” Davis proclaimed, with all the confidence of a man standing on a cliff shouting at a hurricane, that the government had recorded a surplus of $135.4 million in April.

The MPs clapped. The headlines ran wild. The sound bytes were made.

And now? Now, the final report has shown there was no surplus, but a $2.1 million deficit in April.

That’s a margin of error of – oh, what’s the technical term? – a jaw-dropping $137.5 million. In one month.

Let me put that in context: that’s like budgeting for a beach picnic and ending up with a cruise ship you can’t pay for, captained by someone who doesn’t know how to swim.

Still, the Prime Minister insisted it was all due to “strong revenue performance.” Yes, performance – the key word here. Because clearly, this is theatre. A tragicomedy. With the Ministry of Finance as the reluctant supporting actor, fumbling lines and missing cues while the country waits for an actual plot.

And here’s the kicker: they’re projecting a $75 million surplus for the next fiscal year. After being off by $130 million this year. It’s like a gambler losing everything at the roulette table and then doubling down on next week’s bingo game.

One economic analyst, speaking to The Nassau Guardian anonymously – because clearly telling the truth now requires witness protection – asked:

“What credibility do they have in any sort of budgetary projections when they could be off by more than $130 million in a given month?”

Spoiler alert: None.

Still, I’ve tried to be generous. I’ve tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. But here we are, deep in July, with a deficit climbing like a mango tree in Cat Island and the government’s budgetary outlook looking like the weather forecast for Abaco: stormy with a 90% chance of backpedaling.

So, the question must be asked: Who is making these projections? Why are they so wildly inaccurate? And when will the Prime Minister admit that the Minister of Finance is not just asleep at the wheel, but possibly driving a completely different vehicle on a road to nowhere and needs to be fired?

Oh, and remember the financial expert they leaned on to validate their budget ambitions? The one who warned them their revenue assumptions were fluffier than a junkanoo feather? His concerns were, of course, brushed aside like a bad headline.

“Bowe: Where is revenue coming from to achieve surplus?” – The Guardian, June 10th, 2025.

That’s Gowon Bowe, Chairman of the Clearing Banks Association. A man not given to hyperbole. A man who knows numbers. And he’s asking the question everyone else is now whispering over dinner: Where is the revenue coming from?

And still, the Davis administration marches on – undeterred, unbothered, and apparently unfazed by fiscal arithmetic, economic gravity and commonsense.

No, we are not at a point of no return – yet. That’s the kind of doom-and-gloom language the PLP specialized in when they were in opposition, waving it around like a hand fan in the summer heat. But we are at a point of reckoning. A place where right-thinking Bahamians should take serious steps to rein in the madness.

Instead, we have slogans. We have smiles. We have projections made by a Ministry that, at this point, might as well be using a “Magic 8 Ball”.

The PLP fails continues to fail for one reason, is their nature.

And as the electricity bills rise and the deficit deepens, we – the public – are left to pay the price. Again.

Because under the New Day, the math doesn’t add up.

But the excuses always do.

END.