to the Prime Minister of the Bahamas, Sir Lynden Pindling, to the opening of their revamped Court Street headquarters. Sir Lynden's government is under growing fire for its 25-year government of the Bahamas. This newspaper took considerable criticism when it questioned the wisdom of the invitation which his friends in the hierarchy of the PLP extended to Sir Lynden.

Last week the prestigious Financial Times in London carried an article pointing out the magnitude of the "financial recklessness'' which is being claimed against the Pindling government. According to the Financial Times, the Pindling government is being accused of leaving the Bahamas in financial "chaos'' because of borrowing to cover its deficits over the last four years.

When you compare that to the fact that Bermuda's economy has weathered the recession rather well because of the financial care taken by successive Finance Ministers in Bermuda, the Bahamas picture becomes very clear.

Like Bermuda's, the Bahamas economy is narrowly based. Bermuda has traditionally been very careful not to get itself heavily in debt and to take care to protect its high standing in the international banking field. Sir Lynden's government did not do that and the Financial Times thinks borrowing and mismanagement led the Bahamas to financial "chaos''. As a result, the Financial Times says, the new government of Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham was unable to release $33 million in cheques which the Government had written because the accounts were overdrawn.

According to the Financial Times, the government of the Bahamas was faced with a financial deficit last year of $240 million or 8.5 percent of the gross domestic product of the Bahamas. The Financial Times says the Bahamas fiscal deficit jumped eight-fold between 1986 and 1989, was cut in half in 1990 and then almost doubled again in 1991 and 1992. Foreign debt doubled in the last three years. Now the Bahamas is in such trouble that Prime Minister Ingraham has no choice but to borrow another $100 million as a matter of urgency.

Bermudians who have heard repeated suggestions from the PLP's Mr. David Allen for a national airline, will be interested to hear that the troubled state-owned Bahamasair will have to have an extra $51 million by June. The Bahamas Government also faces loans of some $150 million contracted by the state-owned hotel corporation, it needs another $28 million for the airport on which the $58-million budget has already been over-spent.

The Financial Times says that according to Prime Minister Ingraham, $8 million has been taken from the national coffers and secreted in a US bank account.

The Prime Minister says only that the money has been put in "someone's personal account''.

The Financial Times concludes that as a result of all this the Bahamas economy is now "shaky''.