By Shenia Roberts
Journal Staff Writer

Leader of the Official Opposition, the Free National Movement, Michael Pintard believes the
prime minister is out of touch with the needs of the Bahamian people. His sentiment spurred by
comments from prime minister Philip Davis after he said choices people make play a role in
Bahamians difficulty in dealing with the cost of living.
Mr. Pintard said, “tens of thousands of Bahamians are hurting and rather than the prime
minister come up with sensible proposals on how to alleviate the pain they are experiencing, he
blames the Bahamian people by saying it’s your choices, when the truth of the matter is a
number of the pressures have come from the prime ministers choices.”
In addition to this, Free National Movement Chairman Dr Duane Sands also chimed in giving his
opinion on Davis’s comments saying that the only choices Bahamians are privileged to make is
which necessity to take care of this month. He noted that that the Davis administration is out of
touch reality as it relates to the actual cost of living in The Bahamas.
In response to this Prime Minister Davis sought to clarify his initial statements and explained
that he is in no way disregarding the needs or concerns of Bahamians. He said, “we are not in
any way downplaying the cost of living, and we are doing what we can to ensure we work to
defeat it.” He further expressed that the government is in fact aware of the state of the
economy and is actively exploring ways to alleviate these issues as soon as possible.
Moreover, he emphasized that in his initial statement he was not being insensitive and
reassured the Bahamian public that the government is not taking a lackadaisical approach to
these issues but rather working to find effective solution to bring them relief.
The prime minister’s comments came after Leslie Archer, a University of The Bahamas student
conducted a survey that found that the average middle-class family would need 10,000 dollars
per month (based on a family of four) to live comfortably in The Bahamas.
Prime Minister Davis said at the time, “when you think about spending and the demographic,
she may have used it could be a matter of choice.” He further explained that one can choose
the more expensive route resulting in a high cost of living, highlighting the fact that making the
choice to live in Venetian West as opposed to Stapledon is an example of living beyond your
means.”
The prime minister attributed the high cost of living to global inflation.