Dear Sir,

When you read the preamble to the Constitution of the United States you uncover a critical moment for the nation’s people that is exposed in the preamble’s rational. “Sometimes in the course of certain events there comes a time when a certain group feels the need to dissolve the political bands that have connected them with one another”.

There are always critical moments in the cycle of life and Bermuda is certainly looking at one now. This critical moment calls for truthful hearts and thinking minds to rally for the good of the whole country, forsaking protocols and loyalties.

We each like our vegetables, but to get them out of the ground we have to get our hands dirty — and to uncover the truth of where we are as a country we have to do just that. Our economy is imploding with not enough taxable revenue to balance the budget on the public side and not enough activity to sustain the retail and services in the private sector. The national response, typified by the SAGE report, is austerity, cut, cut, cut. The SAGE report is a logical conclusion for the state of affair as they are, or at least perceived to be.

However, we cannot cut our way out of this mess, nor can we cut our way to success. The only true solution is growth in the economy, which creates jobs and taxable revenue. The issue is not about simple tinkering within our economy trying to share the shrunken pie through job rationing. We need several major billion dollar projects released simultaneously that will create thousands of jobs and yes, some healthy inflation. Thing is we don’t have to find them, some of them are staring us in the face. Well you may ask, what’s the problem why don’t we have some of these projects rolling — especially when we need jobs and tax revenue — why would there be any delay? One would think the country, instead, should be jumping for opportunity.

Well here is the critical moment folks, the next dollar for this country going forward for the next 20 years is not the little $200 million hotel or an office block here and there, it’s major infrastructural and syndicated developments each of which are billion dollar initiatives.

The problem is not if there is the money, it’s through whose hands the money will come? We know the maxim “he who pays the drummer gets to call the tune”. The issue at hand is the level and type of financing transcends traditional banking and will necessarily engage huge private equity participation.

The channel through whom these billion dollar ventures must flow will have huge discretionary impact on who gets to partake in the future development of Bermuda. In fact, the channel will define what Bermuda looks like in the future. The channel will define the market place and who owns business, who forms the elite, structural dynamics of how the economy spreads and whether we develop a significant middle class, all wrapped in whom and where the money comes from.

The long debate on black empowerment and the issue of historical economic imbalance, which is at the core of our political swinging, is the epicentre. The question of who funds our future will determine forever the very complexion and level of diversity in our country and will predetermine the issue of future conflict or harmony in Bermuda’s market place and social life.

We all know our history but the Bermuda today is made up of the proverbial “old white money”, “new white money’ and “black trying to get money”. Interestingly it’s the ‘black trying to get money” group that are on the front line of many of the new infrastructural and billion dollar ventures. Ideally if they were funded it would take care of the issue of future diversity and less conflict in the market place but if they are not, the economic disparity will be much broader than what currently exist.

The political dynamic is that the “black trying to get money” group got their jump-start during the reign of the PLP, but were also thwarted by them as well. The question that triggers the critical moment is whether the “new white money” group bypasses the “old white money” group and secures the handle of funding. That equation has the potential of creating an economic imbalance that will create a super elite at the top with a huge under capitalised underclass. Yes there will be education, houses and plenty of jobs but a permanent ceiling for upward mobility and entrepreneurship defined by the network flowing from the “new white money” group, remorsefully supported by the beleaguered “old white money” group. The critical question that defines this moment is whether the “black trying to get money” group who have the means at hand to fund will be eclipsed under the OBA or facilitated. Frankly I think it’s in everyone’s interest to look because the nature of our future hangs in the answer to that question. Unfortunately as it stands, this kind of determination if our past including of recent is the indicator, it has been a veiled deliberate decision with rabid self-interest that prevailed.

KHALID WASI