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BIMINI TO GET A CASINO: it appears now to be the start of something big toward rebuilding the economy of the country. The Ghenting group out of Malaysia has found a new home and that home is Bimini, the small island 52 miles to the east of Miami which is the fishing capital of The Bahamas. The Ghenting group along with Gerrado Capo, a Cuban American, are to further develop their touristic facility on the north Bimini island called Bimini Bay. It will bring a hotel and casino to the island. It promises to create 1000 jobs. Wow. This is likely to transform Bimini and jump start a foundering economy left behind by the Free National Movement. Prime Minister Perry Christie made the announcement at a press conference on Friday 29th June. Our photo of the week is that of the Prime Minister making his Bimini transforming announcement at Bimini Bay from his office in Nassau. Photo by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services.
COMMENT OF THE WEEK TURNQUEST OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY
When a politician is sitting at home with nothing to do with his time, that is a dangerous thing. Almost as dangerous as a rabid dog. Don’t go near him.
That is the state in which Tommy Turnquest, former Minister of National Security and losing politician in the last general election, found himself as he interjected himself into the issue of the unmanned planes flying over The Bahamas which he said he authorized to join the anti drug fight.
The story and the traction it got is a tribute to the power of the web in The Bahamas. Increasingly, the web is becoming the place of choice where you look for breaking news in The Bahamas. The story first appeared on Bahamaspress.com which is perhaps the most popular and powerful political news site in the country. It broke as we uploaded last week this time. Its authors seem indefatigable.
Mr. Turnquest however sought to make the issue of the unmanned surveillance part of the FNM's propaganda effort. First he engaged in ad hominem insults toward Fred Mitchell seeking to make it look like the Foreign Minister did not know what he was doing and that he was woefully ignorant of his own ministry. That found traction on another FNM oriented website. If you see the reply of the Minister down below, you will see that the allegations of Mr. Turnquest were nonsense. He acts as if none of the steps which he recommends were taken before the Minister spoke in public.
Secondly, he tried to make this a contest between the FNM and the PLP and their friendliness to the United States. Sadly this is something which the United States itself seems to buy into. But such is life. The Minister again replied that this has nothing to do with friendliness to the United States but simply information to the public in the face of what appeared to be a secret deal by the FNM with the U.S. to spy on the Bahamian public.
Mr. Turnquest needs to find a job. It’s been long enough since he lost the election. His wife is probably getting on his nerves what with him sitting at home doing nothing all day. That is the real thing Mr. Turnquest: go find something do to. If you do then maybe, just maybe you will not get it wrong again.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 30th June 2012 up to midnight: 103,540
Number of hits for the month of June up to Saturday 30th June 2012 up to midnight: 427,258
Number of hits for the year 2012 up to Saturday 30th June 2012 up to midnight: 4,129,102
Last week as we uploaded, a story was breaking in the country about the use of unmanned surveillance aircraft by the United States to overlook The Bahamas. The press called both the Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell and the Minister of National Security Bernard Nottage. Tommy Turnquest, the former Minister of National Security then said he authorized the surveillance but sought to frame the matter in a letter to the editor into one about faithfulness, loyalty and friendship to the United States and about the competence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Here is Fred Mitchell’s reply to Mr. Turnquest.
Bahamas Information ServicesTel 326 5803
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE27th June 2012
THE FOLLOWING RESPONSE FROM FRED MITCHELL MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRSTO LETTER TO THE PRESS BYTOMMY TURNQUEST ON DRONE REPORTS
I promised to investigate this matter which was first brought to the attention of the public on Sunday 24th June by Bahamaspress.com . The report was later picked up by the mainstream press and a question was posed to the Minister of National Security. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was then asked to comment. As of Sunday, no public official at the highest ranks in either the Ministry of National Security or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were said to be aware of the truth or otherwise of the reports as they were then framed.Tommy Turnquest, the former Minister of National Security spoke that Sunday to the press and his statement confirming knowledge and approval of the surveillance appeared in the newspapers the next day.In response to his comment, I told the press that I could not accept at face value anything the former Minister of National Security had to say It was he who accepted responsibility then for the state of affairs. He of course has no responsibility to-day in law and so can be as loose and irresponsible as he wishes.The public officials are now said to have been briefed and the political directorate has been briefed as well. Discussions have taken place with the American public officials at the highest levels resident in The Bahamas. The Americans released a press report which appears to be consistent with what those officials said in the meetings with Bahamian officials.The security aspects of this matter are for the Ministry of National Security and the specifics as well.It does not now appear that any violations of policy, law domestic or international took place by the use of unmanned surveillance aircraft which the press has described as drones.I am advised that under existing protocols, the Americans take the view that no specific permission is required or requested for a specific act of surveillance; that the use of this equipment is confined to overlooking the movement on the high seas and is restricted to seeking out smuggling and illegal drug activities and does not involve any terrestrial or land based intrusions. The governing instrument appears to be the OPBAT agreement and its subsequent understandings and operational modalities.Contrary to Tommy Turnquest's assertions in the press, this issue is not about friendliness with the United States or gratefulness to the United States. That is typical of Tommy Turnquest and the FNM to advance nonsense and seek to pollute the issue.This is about the simple facts being made available to the Bahamian public in response to a legitimate concern that they (the public) are or may be subject to unlawful spying and intrusion. It is necessary then to dispel any such fears.The principle then is while we fight crime, it must always be subject to the rule of law. We are certain that the United States supports that position. The two countries work well together and in this matter their cooperation has been complete.When Mr. Turnquest confirmed that he and his government authorised these missions of unmanned craft, the natural logic gave rise to the suspicion by some that the FNM government may have been complicit in an unlawful spying mission. The public had to be disabused of that as well.All of this unnecessary speculation could have been avoided had the FNM government given full disclosure before the fact or come clean as soon as this matter became a public issue.As usual Mr. Turnquest and the FNM resort to blaming the PLP, then the press; everyone but themselves. The PLP government has nothing to do with this except the responsibility now to govern in the best interest of the Bahamian people.Bahamians often say: if you don't know what to say, then keep quiet. That is good advice for Mr. Turnquest.The government of the Bahamas under the Progressive Liberal Party pledges to continue the fight against drug trafficking and smuggling through our waters. Mr. Turnquest will not deflect us from that fight. Let there be no doubt about this country's commitment to work together with the United States and other international partners to defeat crime. We pledge to continue our excellent work and cooperation with our American partners in this fight and will continue to fight to eliminate the scourge of crime. The US and The Bahamas stand shoulder to shoulder and arm in arm in fighting the evils of drug trafficking and international crime generally. That is our solemn commitment to the Bahamian people.Politicians who have just lost office should not allow defeat to cause them to lose their political right mind, with the use of selective memory, pompous lecturing and sickening obfuscation.
End
HOW INGRAHAM RAN THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE
The Ministry of Finance can be described as the largest Bahamian owned business in the country. It is responsible for just over a billion dollars in tax collections or revenue or income and just over one and half billion dollars in expenditure directly from the government. It oversees the country's national accounts and the work of the public corporations. The are plenty of tasks for it to do, and to manage. You would have thought that a man who was supposedly reform oriented would actually bring some changes to the Ministry of Finance, would bring it in from the dark ages into the light of the 21st century. Hubert Ingraham left the Ministry of Finance in the same shape in which he found it when he took it over from Pindling in 1992. There was no reform in the PLP's period from 2002 to 2007 and less reform from 2007 to 2012 under Hubert Ingraham. It is vitally important that something be done to reform the Ministry of Finance which by virtue of its control of the purse strings is the most powerful Ministry in the government. Ultimately one hopes that the now Minister of State Michael Halkitis who is from the next generation of PLP leaders will work himself smoothly into the job fully as Minister of Finance. But the political leadership is not the issue , the question is whether or not the Ministry has the technical capability and capacity to serve this country. Under Hubert Ingraham, the public officials were reduced to clerks. Mr. Ingraham did the budget reportedly by himself. When the public officials saw the budget he had finished the work, slashing here, cutting there and adding whatever he felt like. Ministers said nothing about how the budget was shaped. It was whatever he said. That is the one man band approach. The result then is that if something is not done soon the country will lose confidence in the Ministry of Finance that we have. We cannot afford for this to happen. We urge then the reform of the Ministry of Finance as a matter of priority and to staff it with the technical people that are necessary to work a modern Ministry of Finance. That is in the country’s best interest. The sooner, the better.
BIMINI TO GET A CASINO
The photos show Gerrardo Capo of Rav Bahamas Ltd owners of the Bimni Bay project as they announced the new casino and hotel at Bimini Bay in North Bimini on Friday 29th June at the Office of the Prime Minister. (See photo of the week.) The second photo is that of Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe and representative for Bimini explaining the project. The photos are by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services.
WORK PERMIT POLICY
Every week that the Lord sends the rain and the sunshine there is an instrument of the government that meets called the Immigration Board. That Board is actually the Minister of Immigration with the public officials and the Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration. At the meeting scores of applications are received from the public at large both private individuals, corporations and charities to get work permits which will allow people who are not nationals of The Bahamas to work in The Bahamas. It is likely to contribute some 45 million dollars to the public treasury. Nothing to sneeze at in a revenue starved country. The question is if the revenue from that area drops dramatically what will replace it. It also helps with the cash flow since work permits is a cash only business for the government. There are receivables as well. Now comes the PLP into the mix seeking to ensure that Bahamians come first. Therein lies a problem, if there is a significant impact on the work permit policy which results in dramatic reductions in work permits issued, the revenue from work permits will also fall. There are also some who argue that in allowing work permits from high net worth individuals and corporations you actually increase the job opportunities for Bahamians. The Minister for Immigration met with his officials in Grand Bahama last week. He met earlier with the officials in Nassau shortly after he took office. The dilemma of the immigration policy is upper most in his mind and he publicly stated this in his recent address to the House of Assembly on the budget debate. What is clear though is the country seems to want enforcement of the immigration laws. The country should well ask the question why can’t it produce handy men, gardeners and domestics to do the work in the country in a situation where there is 15 per cent unemployment and yet work permits are being given out for these jobs? The Minister promised that in an interview, the video of which appeared on his site last week. We think this is a good thing. There are too many people in the country who are undocumented, and feel comfortable with the fact that they have no documents. They just blithely go along. This is a security issue which needs to be corrected. We think that a public statement ought to be made to the country advising people of why it is necessary to be properly documented, your birth, your christening, your school records, your voter’s card your passport. All of these are important markers as to who you are and to who is a citizen of the Bahamas and therefore entitled to remain here amongst us. We hope then to see more enforcement of the laws and that there will be a public education campaign about this enforcement of the law. It is a necessity.
CABINET TOUR OF BAHAMAR
The Cabinet led by Prime Minister Perry Christie toured the Bahamar facility developing the new hotels at Cable Beach on Monday 25th June. The new hotel will add 2000 new rooms to the room supply in The Bahamas. It will transform tourism in The Bahamas. The company told the Cabinet that in 2014 the hotel will open 8th December. They will have a period of 90 days in 2014 in which they will be recruiting 7,000 workers for the facility. That tells you what the PLP’s job is now. That job is preparing people to work in that facility to be able to take advantage of the jobs or we will face the prospect of work permit holders having to be brought in to man the facility. The photo is by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services.
PRAISE FOR U.S. SUPREME COURT
In the midst of what seemed to be a bad news week, coming on many other fronts, the American President Barrak Obama got good news. The Supreme Court of the United States actually ruled that the law which was passed at the start of Mr. Obama’s term to provide health care coverage for some 30 million Americans was in fact constitutional pursuant to the taxing powers of the Congress. The ruling was read by the Chief Justice John Roberts against whom Mr. Obama had voted during the confirmation vote when he was in the senate of the U.S. Mr. Roberts was appointed by the former President George H W Bush. Every expectation was that Mr. Roberts would have voted with the conservative naysayers on the bench. This time he did not and the law was upheld. Good job by Mr. Obama and we hope that this is a portent that he will win the election in the United States and get to have a second term of office. His opponents seem to have lost their moral compass. They are simply a party of no, no and more no. The FNM in The Bahamas is like them. They just know that they are opposed to whatever the PLP is saying. The U.S. Supreme Court has nothing to do with The Bahamas really but we follow what they do because the United States and what happens there influences what happens in this country. What you saw with that ruling was a triumph of rationality over irrationality. We can use a dose of that everywhere and that is why it was a good result for all of us even Bahamians who are not directly affected by the ruling at all.
THE URBAN RENEWAL WORKERS
There is a hullabaloo over the termination of workers at the Urban Renewal centres as they were left by the Free National Movement. Workers from the facilities have been on the radio and television complaining over the past week since it was announced that all contracts at the facility had come to an end as of 30th June. All workers will have to re-apply if they want to continue to work at the facility. The dismissed workers say that they have been victimized. They say it is because they are FNM supporters they have been let go. One lady who ran the Fox Hill office said on radio that she had done her work and that she deserved to stay, that she had two children and no job and how was she going to survive. This is the difficulty with our cannibalistic politics. Unfortunately, the precedent for all of this was set by the man that she campaigned to return to office in the last general election. Hubert Ingraham came to office in 2007 and within 30 days had terminated everyone working at Urban Renewal. He believed they were all PLPs and did not want them at the office. So how then does the PLP intervene to help anyone who helped to campaign for the FNM and put them back in the offices of Urban Renewal. In Freeport, Tersa Saunders held a press conference to attack the new head of Urban Renewal in Grand Bahama, PLP Assistant Secretary General Michelle Wreckly. The Tribune said that a former cook was being made head of Urban Renewal in Grand Bahama which seemed to suggest that because someone came from a humble background they could not manage the facility. They were simply angry that Mrs. Wreckly brought together all the PLPs fired from Urban Renewal in Freeport in 2007 and showed them to the press last week. Where were the calls for support then and the cries of victimization then from the FNM? The then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham used to say that you have to be able to live with what you decide in government when you get back into Opposition. Now he sees and his supporters see. The Americans say what goes around comes around. Five years ago the PLP warned the FNM that this was a dangerous road down which they were going. They rewarded Perry Christie in 2002 who kept everyone in place by mistaking that for weakness, now he has no room for maneuver and it is not possible to intervene on behalf of any FNM who was involved in those Urban Renewal offices. It simply will not happen. That is the cold hard fact of life in The Bahamas today.
PLP RESPONDS TO DR. MINNIS
The following statement was issued by the Chairman of the Progressive Liberal Party in answer to the Free National Movement’s leader Dr. Hubert Minnis. Dr. Minnis insists on issuing press release after press release in which he accuses the PLP of not stopping crime and contributing to unemployment. Some people’s memories are very short.
Statement Progressive Liberal Party More aimless rambling by FNM leader 29th June 2012
If Dr. Hubert Minnis has nothing constructive to say that adds value to the national discourse, he should keep quiet instead of his senseless rambling and empty bantering.
Perhaps Dr. Minnis wishes to answer why he did not call for the resignation of his cabinet colleague and former National Security Minister Tommy Turnquest when under the watch of the FNM, murders doubled; almost 500 lives were lost during the FNM’s last term in office and well over 300 were out on bail. Further, violence in our schools escalated to riots and students were killed after the school based policing program was cancelled from the public schools; all of this carnage and not a peep from Dr. Minnis.
Dr. Minnis’ memory is quite short as he has clearly forgotten that it was also under the watch of the FNM when an attending nurse was gunned down at the Princess Margret Hospital during a retaliatory shooting of a prisoner in police custody. This heinous act of violence was in addition to numerous escapes by prisoners while in police custody. There was no hue, no cry, no outrage and certainly no call for accountability and resignations from Dr. Hubert Minnis. His silence was deafening.
On the issue of the Urban Renewal workers, Dr. Minnis must have been asleep at the cabinet table between 2007 and 2012 when his government sent home Senior Police Officers, Customs Officers, Immigration Officers and scores of entry level contract workers hired under the PLP’s Second Chance Program. Many of those terminated workers were assigned to Urban Renewal Centers in New Providence and Grand Bahama. Also, many of these workers were forced onto the streets with no way of paying their rent, utilities, school fees and mortgages.
Did Dr. Minnis stand up for these people and piously lecture the former Prime Minister and his cabinet colleagues about how bad their decisions were and how much hurt they were causing these people? No. Dr. Minnis was too busy defending these decisions so it is impossible for him to now have credibility as he tries to lecture the PLP on its policies.
Please Mr. Opposition leader, quit with the pious lectures, the hypocritical bleeding heart and the crocodilian tears. Nobody is fooled by your poorly contrived smoke screen designed to hide your deliberate political posturing and bluster.
STALWART COUNCILOR B WRITES ABOUT LEMMINGS
FUNERAL SERVICE FOR 11 VICTIMS OF BOAT TRAGEDY OF JUNE 10TH 2012
Eleven Haitians who drowned in waters off Abaco while attempting to get into the United States illegally were buried in Nassau on Saturday 30th June following a funeral service at the Enoch Backford Auditorium. The service was attended by Haitian Ambassador to The Bahamas, the Roman Catholic Archbishop and Alfred Gray, the Minister of Local Government. The photos are by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services.
PLP SLAMS LARRY SMITH
Larry Smith is an FNM ideologue who has a pathological hatred for the PLP disguised in intellectual psycho babble. He is a columnist for The Tribune. He went on the attack last week against the PLP’s move to re-take ownership of BTC, the phone company. Interestingly enough, Cable and Wireless is a minority shareholder in the Trinidad phone company so they should be used to the position and should assume the position. The PLP issued a point by point rebuttal of the column by Mr. Smith.
Forrester Carroll writes this week from Freeport about Richard Lightbourn, the FNM MP, who he calls a relic from a past age. Mr. Carroll examines the exchange on the House of Assembly between Mr. Lightbourn and Fred Mitchell MP for the PLP on the issue of the United Bahamian Party and the cultural differences between the 37 Members of Parliament and the one, Mr. Lightbourn.
Richard Lightbourn is truly a relic from the past; a bogyman- if you will- from a period (in our history) we have long since wished to have forgotten; indeed the man emerges (unashamedly) from a period (in Bahamian history) we thought was totally behind us.
The Montagu MP (whose election to the Hon. House of Assembly could only have been possible in one of two constituencies (Montagu and St. Ann’s) in the entire country) came to the Honorable Chamber prepared, in his first speech as MP for the area, to take us back to a time before majority rule when his minority kind (speaking culturally) assumed, unto themselves, pre-eminence over and ruled the majority kind with an iron hand. The period he attempted to resurrect (and glorify I might add) was one when Negros were slaves to his kind (notwithstanding the fact that on paper slavery was abolished almost a century and a half prior); the period when he, his family and their kind (culturally speaking) were members of an elitist small group of slave masters (for them the abolition of slavery was achieved only on paper) who regarded Negros as less than human and deserving only of the crumbs which fell from their tables. The period he wanted to resurrect was that time, in our past, when equality of the races was banned and when the only standard of education afforded Negros was enough for them to be able to read and sign their own names on the envelopes containing their slave wages. The MP attempted to legitimize that black period (in our history) notwithstanding blacks were denied a decent education and were, in fact, required to leave school at fourteen (14) years; higher education was reserved, exclusively, for the “white” elites only. That is the period which this “dinosaur-minded” Member of Parliament (for Montagu) invoked during his maiden speech to our 21st century parliament. While the majority house members were celebrating the beauty of our 21st century democratic ideals, Richard Lightbourn’s mindset was to take the assembly back to those days he enjoyed so much-the days of minority rule. He ought to have felt some shame, for his antiquated racist stance, but RACISTS don’t have any shame.
Lightbourn’s first order of business (on behalf of the good people of Montagu) was to put in the Hansard the fact that the PLP government failed (he said) to implement some ghost plans given to them in 1967 by the UBP for the re-development of the Grants Town area of New Providence. He did this obviously forgetting, for a brief moment, that the party, he now represents, governed for 15 of the last twenty years and if he and they were so interested in the UBP’s plans for the re-development of Grants Town they had ample time to do so. The Montagu MP, being a member of Bay Street’s elites, could have gotten Ingraham to forge ahead with those ghost plans seeing he was part of the group that pulled Ingraham’s strings. When Bay Street ordered Ingraham to jump, remember, he never questioned them; he just did as he was told. I saw nothing useful in this UBP bringing up these old stories for the distant past; what was his point?
The Hon. Foreign Minister (and some others) took exception to Lightbourn’s condescending attitude and regarded his remarks as antiquated and culturally out of touch with these modern times. The minister suggested that Lightbourn, in terms of substance, was stuck in an irrelevant time warp somewhere back in the 1960s. Ministers agreed that Lightbourn’s problem was that he just could not get pass the shellacking the PLP (under Sir Lynden Oscar Pindling) put on his United Bahamian Party (UBP) when Pindling’s PLP yanked governance from them, in 1967, breaking a successive 300 year tradition of minority rule. In crying foul Lightbourn certainly put his foot in his mouth when he accused the Hon. Foreign Minister of (as he put it) “playing the race card.” To this, Mitchell took grave exception. After all he is the country’s foreign minister and as such could not let stand this irresponsible accusation (by an equally irresponsible and callous MP) which could have come back to haunt him when dealing with certain foreign countries in the discharge of his sacred duties in his capacity as foreign minister. The minister could not allow Richard Lightbourn to put his own interpretation on his (Mitchell’s) remarks when he (Mitchell) branded Lightbourn as being “culturally” different from the remaining 37 of the total 38 members of our parliament. Lightbourn insisted that Mitchell was being racist; Mitchell, on his several points of order, insisted that he was not and asked that the Speaker order a withdrawal. After much discussion Lightbourn, very obviously, reluctantly withdrew the accusation. An observation by me (and am sure many others) was that if Richard Lightbourn had not been so racially polarized from childhood, and thought a little more on what Mitchell had said and what he could have possibly meant by his “Cultural Difference” remark he would have realized that Mitchell could not have meant “Race or Skin Color” because included in Mitchell’s “37 of us and one of you” remark he included Mr. Edison Key, a white member, on Lightbourn’s FNM team and the Hon. Ryan Pinder, a white member on Mitchell’s PLP team. These are two white members of parliament (one on either teams) so if Mitchell meant to invoke the race card (of which Richard Lightbourn accused him) wouldn’t he have said instead that “its 35 of us and 3 of you?” I think so, but Lightbourn’s position indicates a deeper problem than what surfaced in his accusations.
For some strange reason Richard felt (after the back and forth without any reason or prompting for doing so) that he should give examples (to the Hon. House in case house members concluded he is racist) to prove that he himself is not a racist; that he and his family love the Bahamas and love Black Bahamians dearly. He went on to explain that he and his brothers attended a school in the UK which was quite cosmopolitan in its makeup. He told the House that there were students from Africa, Indonesia, Japan and a number of other third world countries. In continuing to make his case Lightbourn went on to give first names of housekeepers and gardeners his family employed, I assumed, when he and his brothers were little and how well they got along. He also talked about the maids who helped raise his own two daughters and credited them with helping to instill in his daughters the values they live by today. Mr. Lightbourn didn’t reveal that these house keepers were dark skinned but I deduced that they were from the context of what he said and how he said it and the fact that he was attempting to qualify that he nor his family are racist and have never ever been. Of course this is like a fisherman trying to convince someone that his fish bucket isn’t stinking. The man used, as well, his mother’s love (he said) for the Bahamas; she is 94 years of age and lives in the UK but (he said) she would die for this country; at that suggestion (I must admit to you) I laughed as loudly as I could; jokes. She loves the Bahamas so very much that it causes her to reside permanently in the United Kingdom and stay away from us? Yeah right.
The Montagu MP continued, in his speech, to make an ass of himself; he wanted the Hon. Speaker to find some other punishment, suitable, for members who level uncomplimentary charges against another without available proof to substantiate the same; notwithstanding the member may have withdrawn the accusation he opined. However what he didn’t seem to know (or alternatively ignored) was the fact that there is no punishment, for members of parliament who enjoy immunity in the Hon. Chamber, other than for the speaker to order such accusations withdrawn and expunged from the House’s records. He insisted that there ought to be some more of recourse (other than what’s afforded under the rules of the Chamber) for redress by members who feel their characters have been impugned by what may have been said about them in the Chamber. As the damage to one’s character would have already occurred by the time the words would have been withdrawn and expunged. I say to Mr. Lightbourn; it is what it is and if you (Sir) don’t wish to be exposed to these possible happenings then you had better vacate your seat. I predict that the Montagu MP has a rough road ahead of him; he started out already on the wrong footing.
Mitchell and the others were quite right in setting the ground rules and demarcation lines (for the guidance of this UBP) in the Hon. House of Assembly. They certainly know now where the Montagu MP is in terms of his thinking, his attitude and his view of the Bahamian landscape. He is indeed a relic of the past; a bogyman from decades ago and a throw-over from the bad old days of the United Bahamian Party; Bay Street even (as we know them today) would refuse, I believe, to own and or associate with this 1960s-minded member for Montagu.
Thank you Forrester J Carroll J.P Freeport, Grand Bahama
IN PASSING
Mitchell In Grand Bahama
Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell did a formal inspection of the Passport Office and the Department of Immigration on Friday 29th June in Freeport, Grand Bahama. The photo shows Mr. Mitchell with Jack Thompson, Director of Immigration and Superintendent Clarence Russell head of the Passport Office in Freeport.
| Mitchell In Jamaica
Fred Mitchell MP and Minister of Foreign Affairs represented Prime Minister Perry Christie in Jamaica at the formal opening of the UWI regional headquarters. The new eight million dollar US building was formally opened by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller on Wednesday 27th June. Chancellor of the University Sir George Alleyne and Vice Chancellor Nigel Harris presided.
Christie To Caricom Heads Meeting
Prime Minister Perry Christie makes his triumphant re-entry into the Caricom region with his return to the Caricom heads of government conference, this time being held in Castries St. Lucia from 2nd July to 5th July. The region’s financial issues are to be discussed at the conference. Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell will accompany the Prime Minister.|
The Response In Europe To The Bahamas
Reports from Europe say that Ryan Pinder MP and the Minister for Trade is having big successes in Europe. He is soon back from a trip abroad which took him to Jamaica for a conference on competiveness in the region sponsored by the World Bank, then to Geneva, Switzerland for the WTO accession discussions and then to London on a tour sponsored by the Bahamas Financial Services Board. The response to the BFSB’s targeting in London is said to be overwhelmingly positive. Bring the cheques back Minister.
Big Panty Gal
We thought you would get a big laugh out of this photo which appeared on Facebook. A bit risqué but then again.
Marvin Bethel Retires
Marvin Bethel began from the bottom of the ladder at J.S. Johnson way back in 1969 and worked himself up to being a board member and Managing Director in perhaps the country’s premier insurance company, now publicly traded. The company ran an ad on Friday 29th June announcing his retirement from the job. He is a real Bahamian success story. We congratulate him and wish him well.
Renward Wells In Jamaica
Renward Wells is now the government’s representative at the Caribbean Disaster Management Agency (CDEMA). He replaces Joshua Sears, the former Director General of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Wells is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works. He attended a meeting of CDEMA in Jamaica on Friday 29th June to discuss the region’s preparedness for the hurricane season.
Public Servants Sign A Deal
Shane Gibson, the Public Service Minister, has signed an agreement with the Bahamas Public Services Union headed by John Pinder which will give the 16,000 public servants the raises negotiated by the last FNM administration. The raises will be paid at the end of July. There will be no general increase but a lump sum payment, equivalent to the annual increment that civil servants get. John Pinder, President, signed for the Union. A press conference was held to make the announcement on Thursday 28th June. Michael Halkitis, the Minister of State for Finance also attended the conference.
Ingraham Says He Has To Go
He showed up in a church in Abaco, they say. He told the people he was leaving on 19th July. He said he would not be campaigning. He said he hoped that North Abaco would remain red. Well, he said it in church but we remain skeptical. Hubert Ingraham’s seat must be returned to the PLP’s fold. Nardo Curry is the man. We are talking about what Hubert Ingraham said but we again will believe it when we see it.
Bernadette Christie’s Mum Trixie Is Ill
We report sadly that Trixie Hanna, mother of Bernadette Christie, wife of the Prime Minister is seriously ill in hospital.
Bolt Is Beaten In Jamaica Trials
Friday night Usain Bolt, the world record holder in the one hundred and two hundred metre races was beaten by fellow country man Yohan Blake at the Olympic trials in Jamaica on Friday 29th June. Mr. Powell won in 9.75 seconds with Mr. Bolt coming in at 9.86 seconds. The photo is from Reuters. The three top finishers in the race Mr. Powell, Mr. Bolt and Asaph Powell all qualified for the Olympics. Folks say that you should not read too much into it, since in 2008 at the pre Olympic qualifier Mr. Bolt was also defeated and he came back and set the world record.
Mitchell Gets Personal Autograph From Usain Bolt
By couresy of the Issa family, Fred Mitchell MP and Foreign Minister of The Bahamas was able to get a personally autographed copy of the Usain Bolt autobiography. He inscribed it: To Fred Mitchell, you have the tool for the job.” This is a reference to the line used by Mr. Mitchell in a rally at the launch of his campaign in Fox Hill.
Congratulations To The Parson
The Venerable Archdeacon James Palacious celebrated his 60th birthday and the 36th anniversary to the priesthood last week on the feast of St. John the Baptist, patron saint of the diocese. The Archbishop Drexel Gomez celebrated 40 years as a Bishop on the same day with a pontifical high mass at the Christ Church Cathedral in Nassau.
Confirmation At The Cathedral
Bishop Laish Boyd of the Anglican Church confirmed these people today at the Cathedral. Congratulations to them all. The photo is by Peter Ramsay.
Kelly Burrows Suspended
The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. This was the admonition giving to our friend Kelly Burrows by a high ranking FNM member as they sat and celebrated the 90th birthday of a mutual friend’s mother in Nassau. Then, Kelly was severely rebuked by others in attendance for conduct unbecoming of an old UBP/FNM. For this breach, he was then given a five-year suspension from this grouping. It would seem that the wheels are continuing to fall off the FNM’s wagon. Things that make you go hmmmm.
The Lemming Award
Dr. Hubert Minnis and Loretta Butler-Turner, leader and deputy leader of the FNM are two flat-footed leaders that lack the gravitas of what is needed to lead.
They have become so accustomed of blindly following the leader and now that he is gone find themselves lost on what should be done to grow the FNM party. So first up in her quest to score political brownie points, Mrs. Butler-Turner raised the issues of home invasions and sexual assaults that have been taking place on the island of New Providence in recent weeks. Mrs. Butler-Turner did not appreciate that this was a very delicate and highly sensitive matter best left to the police because of the very nature of the crime and our insular community where everyone knows one another. The police, for their part, had to walk a very tight rope to balance the public’s right to know while at the same time protecting the privacy of the victim(s). It was a callous blunder on Butler-Turner’s part. The police, if you were paying attention, seemed to be closing in on the culprits of this most heinous crime. Mrs. Butler-Turner should know that there are no brownie points to be had on these delicate matters; these sorts of crimes should never be politicized.
Then it was Dr. Hubert Minnis time to score some political points at the expense of the Minister of National Security, Dr. B.J. Nottage and Junior Minister, Keith Bell. Minnis and the FNM were calling for both men resignations because of the escape a man who was being treated at the Princess Margaret Hospital for stab wounds; and, at the time, he was assisting the police with the investigation into a murder. For that breach of security, the FNMs were calling for both men’s resignation. At this rate, when the PLP will mark its first one hundred days in office, there will be no more ministers left to govern; and, the country will descend in to chaos and anarchy; if we take their idea to its logical conclusion.
The leader of Her Majesty’s loyal opposition is a constitutional position that should not be taken lightly. Since the election of the leader and deputy leader of the FNM were conducted, these two persons have not given the people of the Bahamas much reason to inspire confidence in them. They have, in fact, behaved like lemmings heading full speed ahead over the cliff.
Dr. Minnis and Mrs. Butler-Turner have so distinguished themselves that they are the first recipients of the Bahamas Uncensored LEMMING AWARD for going above and beyond the cause of thoughtlessness, and not knowing an issue if it hits them over the head.
In Grand Bahama, there are some supporters of the FNM who are having a hard time coming to grips with the magnitude of the May 7th, general election loss. So now is not the time for the FNM leaders to shrink from their responsibilities. We are reliably informed that in mid- July, former Prime Minister Ingraham would surrender his political sword and walk away from active politics for good. So the FNM and its leaders, in order for the party to survive, must step up to the plate and behave responsibly. If not, we will see the demise of the FNM.
Stalwart B
PS: See You tube’s clip of Lemmings over the cliff.
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THE WOMEN WHO SERVED US. It was national pride day on Friday 6th July. This was a day set aside by the government to honour the suffragette movement and the role of women in the development of country. The leaders of the country gathered in Rawson Square on that day to pay tribute to women. Amongst the pioneers whose faces adorn the public square are the late Dame Doris Johnson, the first female to serve in the Cabinet and the late Mary Ingraham, the grandmother of the present MP for Seabreeze Hope Strachan. The photo the women gathered for the occasion is by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services.
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
THE BUSINESS OF COMMITTEES AND BOARDS
The Chairman of the Progressive Liberal Party Bradley Roberts explained with painstaking care that the Free National Movement was in no position to criticize the government of the PLP in its appointment of Boards and Committees who do much of the work to run the nuts and bolts of the government under the direction of Ministers. The FNM seems to have made it a signature of their political campaign to attack the PLP using the slogan “ late again”. They used that slogan in 2007 to defeat the PLP. They said that the Leader of the PLP was always late in what he did.
The government was elected on 7th May. The Cabinet appointments were done by 10th May. So the complaint from the FNM now is that there are no Boards and Committees in place with the exception of the governing council for the College of The Bahamas. It turns out that the FNM did not announce and complete their Board appointments until 8th July 2007. They came into effect on 1st July but were not announced and gazetted until the 8th July. The PLP finished the appointment of all of its Boards and Committees on Friday 6th July, 2012.
In the mean time however, the work of the government under the PLP goes on. Nothing has stopped. But during the week, the radio talk show hosts and the press were giving the PLP a good drubbing after its leader said in the press that part of the reason why the government was unable to get the board appointments done was because his mother-in-law had been gravely ill. She died shortly before the Prime Minister was to take off for his first Heads of Government meeting on St. Lucia. He did not go to that.
The Nassau Guardian carried the story about the Boards and Committees. The country went ballistic. How said his critics could the death of his mother-in-law stop the work of the government? They may have a point but then again, they may not.
We remember a young Harvard Professor making the point that in our culture, it appears that we do not give allowances for the human condition. He gave the example of a football player in American football whose father died. He was given three days off to go to the funeral and come back to work. He did not perform up to par and the public was merciless on the young player. There was no allowance for the fact that when someone who is close to you dies that notwithstanding your job there are emotional effects which you cannot help and are part of the human condition. The real question you have to ask is what kind of culture is this that demands that?
It affects some more than others but it is a human condition.
In the overall scheme of things then in this matter, the Prime Minister should be given a pass on this. In any event, he did not quite say that it was because of his mother-in-law’s death the Boards were not appointed.
This is an interesting aspect of our politics. We could not for example understand why this business of the Prime Minister being late got so much traction in a society where everything starts late and lasts too long. Not even funerals start on time these days.
There is no doubt about the fact that in The Bahamas, we need to undergo a dramatic change in the culture of our country when it comes to our work ethic. Life after all goes on but on this one, where no actual harm was done and the work of the government continued, we say to the FNM and their criticism: “Gimmie a break!” Find something else to tal about.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 6th July 2012 up to midnight: 94,564
Number of hits for the month of June up to Saturday 30th June up to midnight: 94,564
Number of hits for the year 2012 up to Saturday 30th June 2012 up to midnight: 4,232,071
This Tuesday 10th July is the 39th anniversary of the Independence of The Bahamas. Congratulations to our country on this stellar achievement. The country held National Pride Day on Friday 6th July to mark the occasion of the country’s independence. The occasion saluted women for the fifty years of full adult suffrage in The Bahamas. This year marks 50 years since women first exercised the right to vote. The public square is adorned with the photos of women who contributed to the building up of the common life of The Bahamas. The photos are by Peter Ramsay of the Prime Minister speaking at the function. First woman elected to Parliament Janet Bostwick, first female Speaker of the House of Assembly Italia Johnson. The Prime Minister addressed the nation on that day and praised the role and contribution of women in the society.
Fred Mitchell, the Member of Parliament for Fox Hill and the Minister of Foreign Affairs headed the delegation of The Bahamas to the Caricom Heads of Government meeting in St. Lucia. The new chair of the body is St. Lucian Prime Minister Kenny Anthony. Mr. Mitchell explained that he was heading the delegation because the Prime Minister did not travel because of the death of his mother-in-law Trixie Hanna (see story below) on Tuesday 3rd July. The issues included the re-entry of The Bahamas on the Caricom stage under the PLP, the request by Trinidad to accede to the Caribbean Court of Justice on the criminal side only and to support Haiti. While in St. Lucia, the Minister met with the Haitian president and the Minister of Trade for Haiti to discuss bi-lateral issues including the removal of restrictions by The Bahamas to import Haitian fruit into The Bahamas. Mr. Mitchell also made a pitch for the return of the stolen plane to The Bahamas that belongs to Pineapple Air. Mr. Mitchell was joined at the meeting by Michael Halkitis, the Minister of State for Finance and by Damien Gomez, the Minister of State for Legal Affairs. The photo shows the group of leaders in the official shot at Castries, the capital of St. Lucia.
TRIXIE HANNA DIES FUNERAL PICTURES
Trixie Hanna as she died was a popular woman from the Valley. She spent her last years living next to her daughter Bernadette who had as one of the pretty girl of the Valley won the ultimate prize, that of being the husband of the man who would be king, the now Prime Minister of our country Perry Christie. She spent her last years playing cards at her home built by her daughter’s hand in Cable Beach. The doors were linked just as the old homesteads used to be linked in the Valley. Mother and daughter living side by side. Her friends would come to visit and to talk and to play cards. She had a great sense of humour. Mrs. Hanna’s husband Fr Howard Hanna predeceased her. She died on Tuesday 3rd July after a brief illness in the Princess Margaret Hospital. The funeral took place on Saturday 7th July at St. Agnes Church. Her son-in-law the Prime Minister attended the funeral and eulogized her. The photos are by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services. Farewell Trixie.
PYL’S NEW LEADERSHIP
A new generation of leaders…
From Left - Right: (Back) Rashad Smith, Devaughn Taylor, Raymond Neymour, Jaydian Miller(Front) Taran Mackey, Sherwin Johnson, Sasha Farah, D’Asante Beneby, Rt. Hon Perry G. Christie, Andre Kelly, Jenee Meadows, Cashmere Farrington
The Progressive Young Liberals, the National Youth Arm of the Progressive Liberal Party, installed eleven new officers on Sunday 1st July that will lead them into the new fiscal year. The halls of the British Colonial Hilton Hotel were draped in gold as party leaders and supporters gathered to be a part of this history making event. Electing their very first female Chairman, D’Asante Beneby, this golden team made up of three females and eight males took their positions at the front of the platform and pledged their dedication and support to the organization. Ms. Beneby acknowledged past PYL Chairman Keenan Johnson along with Mr. Omar Armbrister and the outgoing National Secretary Devon Melba Forbes for their dedication and excellent efforts to the organization. With a course outlined, the chairman pledged to lead her team and the organization to a bright future. She also mentioned that in their mandate they promise to focus on 4 components which are education and empowerment, national development, social outreach and sub branch support and establishment. She has given her team their portfolios and also added a team for Grand Bahama & Outer Island Affairs in accordance with the governing PLP.The Prime Minister Perry Christie and PLP leader spoke to the new team and commended the team for an already impressive start to their tenure as youth officers of the party. He pledged his support to each member of the team and also to the success of the organization. He went on to thank the Progressive Young Liberals for their role in the success of the May 7th 2012 general election.
HOW USEFUL IS RAY WINDER’S VOICE ON GDP
Raymond Winder has found a voice since the FNM lost office. Mr. Winder has been a faithful follower of the FNM and served them in various capacities when they were in office. No words of caution about debt and all that under them. Silence on those controversial points as the FNM ran up the national debt. Now he was in the press last week saying that the figures which the country used on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the debt which the country owes are lies. That is the upshot of his comment that the real per centage that we owe as a proportion of the GDP is wrong. He claims that there are hidden figures all around and the proportion is actually higher than it is. That coming from the man who is supposed to be head of the Trade Commission and who is leading the negotiations on accession to the World Trade Organization is in the paper saying that our national stats are a lie. That’s what freedom means one supposes. You say anything you like, no thought at all of the consequences and the context of what you say and who you are.
THE USE OF THE CONTEMPT JURISDICTION
Ortland Bodie, the talk show host, was in trouble again. This time it was not the police who he was fooling with. You will remember that last time he was in public trouble he claimed to have known where to find the guns on the streets which the police could not find. So the police went looking for him to ask him under caution what he knew about guns. He had to back down. The latest salvo was the fact that he said something bad on radio about Judge Stephen Isaacs. The judge did not take kindly too it and exercised the contempt jurisdiction of the court. Despite Mr. Bodie's abject and groveling apologies and mea culpas, the judge found him guilty and ordered him to pay $2500 to the Ranfurly Homes for Children. That was the end of that on the legal front. The problem is we have a difficulty with is the fact that judges continue to be able to exercise as a common law offence the contempt jurisdiction in their courts. Something is wrong with that on the face of it. We think that it is a fetter on free speech and have been inviting the Parliament to put this jurisdiction on a statutory basis with a proper way for someone who is aggrieved to appeal such a finding by a judge. We first saw the rank abuse of this by the former and now dead Chief Justice Joaquim Gonsalves Sabola, a thoroughly corrupt man, who was able to bamboozle Hubert Ingraham to make him a citizen of this country and given privileges far beyond what he deserved. Now we have it being exercised again and still parliament has not intervened. The law on criminal libel is still on the books. That too should be removed. It is important to get rid of these fetters on free speech. We hold no brief for Ortland Bodie but it’s the policy of the law which is important in this matter. Photo by The Tribune
THE AMERICANS CELEBRATE THEIR INDEPENDENCE DAY
Every year on 4th July, the Americans remember and celebrate the birth of their nation resulting from a declaration of independence on that date in 1776. The actual independence of the country from Britain was not recognized officially until 1782. Never mind that. There was a party on board a visiting U.S. war ship in the Bahamian harbour. Bahamian officials gathered at the party and were led by Governor General Sir Arthur and Lady Foulkes, Deputy Prime Minister Philip Davis and Mrs. Davis who all joined John Dinkelman the Charge for the Americans since there is no Ambassador in place. The photo is by Derek Smith.
SURELY HUBERT MINNIS IS JESTING
The Leader of the Opposition Hubert Minnis had a church service last Sunday this time to thank God after their defeat. Suddenly the godless heathen who run the FNM have found religion. Good idea though. It is better to get Loretta Butler Turner decked out in a big hat than spouting off her big mouth in the House of Assembly and getting the party in trouble. Dr Minnis has a pretty difficult job trying to get the troops back in order after a stunning and complete defeat. He has been abandoned by his former Leader and left to his own devices. One of the devices that he uses is the press. Every week, every day that the lord sends sunshine or rain, you can expect Dr Minnis to have some press release in which he seeks to blame the PLP for everything under the sun. Problem is that it is too early in the game and the people of the country are simply not listening. They won’t start to listen again until well into the term. But until then one supposes the Opposition must oppose with every fibre of their being. Last week’s letter to the editor was pretty lame though. He claimed or is it his speech writer who is doing the claiming that the PLP is taking advantage of the work done by the FNM with regard to the projects which the PLP is now completing. He even took credit for the PLP’s projected white paper on tax reform. Our Minister of State Michael Halkitis says on that score that all the FNM did about tax reform is talk. They did nothing else. The PLP was quick on the draw with regard to this. It is remarkable to us to hear these arguments from the people whose leader Hubert Ingraham used to say: some people reap and others sow when the PLP used to point out that the FNM did nothing of its own during the time it was in power to bring new projects and investments, that they were simply completing PLP projects. Now you no longer hear that, they now claim that the PLP is taking credit for their projects. That is simply untrue. The PLP issued a statement in answer to Dr. Minnis. It follows below:
Bradley Roberts Reply To Hubert Minnis
Dear Editor,
From his letter to the editor that appeared in the media on Monday 2nd July 2012, Dr. Minnis is either suffering from selective amnesia or he is deliberately deceptive in his account of national events.
Firstly, the PLP always acknowledged the global recession. The party however criticized the FNM’s stop, review and cancel policy that accelerated the country’s economic decline and descent into a recession prematurely. We stood by that position then and stand by the same now.
The press reported in 2007 that according to the head of the contractor’s association, 70% of contractors were either unemployed or under employed. This was not due to the global recession brought on by the financial melt down – this was the direct result of the bad policies of the FNM where it sought to (ostensibly) “spite” the PLP government.
Standard and Poors reported that the stop, review and cancel policy of the FNM government contributed to the “stalling” the economy.
The PLP accused the FNM government of tax hikes at a time when governments around the world were lowering taxes and offering incentives to stimulate the private sector and save jobs.
Editor, I will go further. The tax hikes on hotel rooms and departure tax increases were bad for the Bahamian economy and hurt the tourism industry. While stopover visitor numbers and tourism expenditure were increasing in competing destinations, stopover visitors and expenditures were declining at home.
The FNM government deliberately allowed the legislation that waived the stamp tax for first time home buyers to expire on the 31st December 2007 because it was a PLP policy and the former Prime Minister had the audacity to try to blame the PLP for the expiration of this bill. Clearly this was a bad policy decision by the FNM government that hurt the local construction industry and the national economy.
Further, the FNM increased the stamp taxes on real estate transactions and removed the flat real property tax rate on high-end properties and assessed a higher rate. This policy decision crippled the real estate and construction industries as confidence was lost.
The FNM government intentionally stopped and delayed important projects left in place by the PLP for purely political reasons. These projects could have created much-needed jobs for Bahamians but the FNM was too busy playing politics instead of looking after the interests of Bahamians.
They also lied to the Bahamian people about the severity of the local economic crisis. The leadership of the FNM had to know that the 2011/2012 budget deficit was more than the projected $314 million, but they held onto that figure until their defeat at the polls. Bahamians outside the government were pegging this figure at around $500 million but the FNM vehemently denied this to the bitter end.
One of the most egregious acts by that heartless FNM government was the tax hikes and subvention cuts in the 2010/2011 budget. The FNM had the unmitigated gall and gumption to raise taxes on the backs of Bahamians after collecting almost $500 million in one offs in previous years.
They raided BTC’s bank account to the tune of $120 million in dividends.
They then sold the corporation for $204 million.
They collected hundreds of millions more in stamp taxes from the sale of Vopak (former BORCO), the sale of South Riding Point Ltd. (former Burma Oil) and the sale of Bahamar involving the Chinese.
After collecting almost $500 million in one-offs, the FNM still wanted to raise an additional $100 million in revenue to narrow the budgetary deficit. The PLP could not support this level of economic mismanagement and cold, callous and heartless attack on struggling and suffering Bahamians so they walked out of Parliament in protest.
At the end of that fiscal year, the country suffered economic elasticity so their tax policy was a dismal failure.
The botched road works was a jobs killer and caused many businesses to close their doors. This decision was particularly egregious because the FNM cancelled many of the road improvement contracts they met in place that employed most of the major road builders in the Bahamas. They opted for a foreign contractor that got in bed with Bahamas Hot Mix while qualified Bahamians stood on the sidelines.
It is clear that the policies of the FNM government made the recession worse. This was always the argument advanced by the PLP. The party’s leader and current Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Perry G. Christie made this case up to the 5th May 2012 at Clifford, a mere two days before the General Elections.
The FNM in its perverted fixation on and lust to destroy and reverse any and everything PLP made poor policy decisions that hurt literally thousands of Bahamians. Now in opposition, Dr. Minnis seeks to wash his party’s hand much like Pontius Pilate did, blame everything on the recession, and point the finger at the PLP.
Editor, I would be remiss if I allowed Dr. Minnis and the FNM to get away with this. Dr. Minnis and his FNM cohorts helped to create this mess and the PLP government is working assiduously to clean it up.
Finally Editor, I wish to comment on this non-sense about the PLP benefiting from the accomplishments of the FNM.
Firstly, the FNM government projected a $25 million budgetary surplus in 2007 based purely on what they inherited from the PLP’s prudent stewardship of the Bahamian economy.
Secondly, the FNM benefited from projects like the new LPIA project, Bahamar, the national stadium and the I-Group in Mayaguana etc. Each major project the FNM sought credit for was the brainchild and work of the PLP government.
Thirdly, the FNM failed to attract one single significant foreign investment during 2007 to 2012.
Bahamians know that governments are continuous and all governments benefit from the work of their predecessors. It is also true that a succeeding government is burdened by the missteps, policy errors and general ineptitude of its predecessor.
Dr. Minnis wants it both ways so he comes across as disingenuous and petty and his comments come across as sour grapes. I am satisfied however, that the Bahamian people are smarter than he gives them credit for.
Yours etc.;
Bradley B. Roberts
National Chairman
Progressive Liberal Party
July 2nd 2012
THE STORY OF KYLE DORSETT
The photo shows Kyle M. Dorsett who is on his way to France as a teacher of English from his University McGill in Montreal, Canada. He is a Bahamian success story. Here is his story in his own words. Congratulations and do well.
My name is Kyle M Dorsett and I am a 22-year-old young Bahamian. I recently obtained my Bachelor of Arts in English literature with Political Science on June7th, 2012 from McGill University in Montréal Canada.
In May, I was selected by the French Embassy for the Bahamas and Jamaica to teach English in France.This October, I will begin a seven-month teaching assistantship in two secondary schools in Toulouse, France. To my knowledge, I am the only Bahamian chosen for this position in 2012.
This amazing opportunity to live and work in France for year is a continuation of my French immersion plans. Last summer, I was the first recipient of the Only Love Goes Around (OLGA) Foundation French Exchange Grant. For four weeks, I lived and studied in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. During my stay last summer in France I stayed with a family that didn’t speak any English. This afforded me the opportunity to improve my French language skills, gain a new professional experience and interact with a new and world-renowned culture that is known for its contributions to gastronomy, fashion and the arts.
Also, my studies in Québec, the French province of Canada, also helped to strengthen my French language skills.
After my experience in Toulouse, I plan to further my education. I desire to become a university professor specialising in Caribbean literature, history and politics.
STALWART B WRITES FROM FPO ON PLOTTING AND SCHEMING
Based on the boundary cuts leading up to the general election, it was hoped that Dr. Minnis would have lost his seat because of the radical cuts that were made and given to others. The FNM was so certain of victory that if Minnis lost his seat, he would have been appointed a Senator and made a Minister. This would have taken care of his leadership ambitions, and thereby, taking him out of leadership contention. All of this was done in favor of FNM’s favorite son former Minister Zhivargo Laing and heir apparent to Ingraham. The same move was effectively done to Dion Foulkes, and, he twice walked into the same trap.
It was also revealed that FNM’s chair, Charles Maynard, was being vocal because he desperately needs a job. He told his colleagues that if he was elected chair, he had to be paid, so he is now being paid by two FNM financiers. He is merely singing for his supper while at the same time trying to remain relevant.
In a recent meeting in Grand Bahama, where party faithful were in attendance, it turned out that Deputy leader, Butler-Turner was not informed about the Saturday morning meeting. But, she heard about it and flew up to Grand Bahama to be a part of the meeting. Dr. Minnis sees Butler-Turner as a stalking horse for leadership. She has made no secret of her leadership ambitions. At the Saturday morning meeting, a list of names was put forth as campaign generals to travel to Abaco to help fight the by-election. Most of the names put forth are die hard supporters of Hubert Ingraham. These names came from Ingraham, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Go figure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In Abaco, it seems that John Swain has emerged as the front runner. Mr. Swain is a Chartered Accountant and is seem as having resources of his own to fight the election. Other contenders have not been as enthusiastic with the idea of competing in a by-election because the government will not change; and, a lot of the supporters are unwilling to challenge a government that has four more years to govern. So, there has been a falling away of support for the FNM.
Tommy Turnquest and Dion Foulkes roles in the FNM have been diminished. Dr. Duane Sands is now one of the new faces of the FNM. Michael Pintard, since the election, have cut off most of his FNM brethren and is said to be hiding in the tall grass staying out of the sight of Deputy Prime Minister, Brave Davis. Zhirvargo Laing, heir apparent, is learning to be humble and bracing himself for some of the questions he will have to answer for the decisions that he made as junior Minister. With so much plotting and scheming, will Dr. Minnis make it through the political mine field, and survive as leader of the Free National Movement. But as the king said in The Lion In Winter, you must plot and scheme all your life. It is the only way to be alive, 50 years old and king all at the same time.
Stalwart B
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Forrester Carroll writes from Freeport this week about Charles Maynard, the Chairman of the FNM and his other FNM colleagues. He calls them hypocrites because they are criticizing the PLP for the work that they're doing at Urban Renewal and rebuilding the programme while they sat back when they were in office and fired PLPs from the Urban Renewal programme.
Charles Maynard (to say the least) is a disingenuous, dishonest and a downright conniving wannabe politician; success though (in that regard) will elude him. As a matter of fact he and his FNM colleagues have had their time and are now finished, as a viable political force, in this country. They will have a tough time ever again being elected to power in this Bahamas. The kind of damage inflicted on poor struggling Bahamians, by the dictatorial FNM regime under Ingraham, Laing and those who are of Charles’ mindset 2007-2012, will not soon be forgotten.
My issue with the FNM’s chairman today, however, concerns the comments he made about Deputy Prime Minister Brave Davis in connection with Urban Renewal’s employees whose contracts would have expired (30th June) by the time this article is published. Charles Maynard knows (and simply cannot pretend to forget) exactly what his FNM party government-the party he now chairs-did to all those Urban Renewal staff members they met in place when they took office on May 2nd 2007. The FNM assumed they were all supporters of the PLP and proceeded, post haste, to release them all (those whose contracts expired as well as those who had contracts still in force) from the employ of Urban Renewal. Not only that but the FNM government (of which Charles Maynard was an obvious proud cabinet minister) dismissed as well suspected PLPs who had recently signed contracts with the housing department. One clear example, which comes immediately to mind, was Mrs. Carolyn Kinglocke who I am told had just signed a three-year contract; she was dismissed without blinking an eye. Charles didn’t think then that what they were doing amounted to rank political victimization or that it was putting Bahamians on the unemployment lines; he thought then that it was prudent for the new FNM government to rid itself of these employees assumed to be totally loyal to the PLP. I would ask Charles Maynard now to tell me (and the nation) what is so wrong with the new PLP government making sure to put on staff persons who support and who will implement PLP government programs?
As the Deputy Prime Minister asserted ; we will employ persons who are committed to seeing the PLP’s programs become successful, for your information Mr. Charles Maynard, and not persons who hate the PLP so much that they would undermine our potential success; we did that nonsense in 2002 and are not about to make fools of ourselves again. Persons who are committed-I said COMMITTED-to the success of our Urban Renewal 2.0 program will be employed and they will all be Bahamians. I ask; do any of you know of any FNM supporter who would be committed to seeing programs, put in place by the PLP government become successful? All the FNMs I know can’t wait for the PLP to fail; as a matter of fact they are actually praying to God Almighty for the PLP government to fail so why would we be so stupid and leave any of them in influential positions, in our government, to crucify us?
The FNM’s Chairman had this to say; “we are reliably informed that some 22 individuals, inclusive of managers and facilitators, will be jobless by the end of June. This will have a devastating impact on many hard-working Bahamians and their families. The PLP claims to put Bahamians first, but this action is a clear demonstration that they are prepared to throw Bahamians onto the unemployment line” unquote. Have you heard of such a bunch of cow dung before in your lives? The FNM said as well that they care for Bahamians but did they show that caring attitude for Bahamians when, as I said above, they came to office in 2007 and fired every single Urban renewal employee they found on staff? Did they show care for those ordinary Bahamians and their families when they fired every single suspected PLP they found on the job at the ministry of housing; those with or without current contracts in force? Did they show care for the families of all those police, customs, immigration and defense force officers they dismissed immediately after taking office in 2007? What about Steve McKinney’s family and Phillipa Russell’s; did the FNM think about them and their families’ welfare when they were being summarily and casually dismissed? The FNM (Charlie Maynard) has absolutely no credibility when speaking to such matters; you guys are all such damn nasty hypocrites; Neko Grant had the nerve to head a press conference, by the FNM, here in Grand Bahama on Sunday 24th June for the purpose of voicing their disapproval with the PLP’s decision not to renew the June 30th expiration date of contracts and to charge the PLP with victimization. Grant, no doubt, knows that the 38 persons who he said received their letters, to that effect, are all FNMs; FNMs who they replaced suspected PLPs with in 2007. Your parliamentarian teams (Charlie Maynard) are desperately trying to find issues on which they can score political points but are failing because they have no credibility on these matters. All of what they are now claiming that the PLP is doing wrong is sins which they committed during the entire five years they’ve been in office. It is their conscious licking the hell out of them and in an effort to appease their guilt they resort to accusing the PLP. Michelle Reckley, to her credit, was smart enough to locate 75 workers who were fired, from Urban Renewal in Grand Bahama, by the FNM days after taking office in 2007; she appeared with them, in a press briefing on Tuesday morning 26thJune, to debunk what the FNM had to say on the matter; the suckers have no credibility when speaking to such issues. By the way (brother man) don’t bother to contest the North Abaco by-election seat (if it does in fact come off) because you guys will only embarrass yourselves. Save your money (would be my advice) for you will need all of it to pay down on that outstanding $1 million campaign debt you already have from the general elections. The PLP will win North Abaco, big time, so fall on your swords and give up the ghost.
But watching Charles Maynard (the FNM’s chairman); Dion Foulkes (the FNM’s immediate past labor minister); Neko Grant and the other stooges, here in Freeport, make complete Jackasses of themselves made me sick to my stomach. I watched, in disgust, while this neutered bunch took issue with a matter that was really and truly the hallmark of their party’s (FNM) own modus operandi for five solid years. They came on May 2nd 2007 and began from night one to slash and burn; Steve and Phillipa fired the night of the FNM’s victory and the beat went on from there. They slashed and burned, without regard for the welfare of those Bahamians who, for the most part were earning minimum wages; they just terminated them without notice. Now that the shoe is on the other foot they see everything wrong with the PLP determining whose contracts would or would not be renewed. The posture of the FNM, at the time, was that they were restructuring; that is what Zhivargo Laing and Kenneth Russell called it; well the PLP is really restructuring to ensure that Bahamians committed to the orderly implementation and adherence to our Urban Renewal 2.0 program are put on staff only so there.
Everyone should know, though, that these guys (the FNM) are only putting on a show. The five years they’ve been in power proved to us, beyond a shadow of doubt, that they do not and never did give a damn for or about ordinary Bahamians. It is my considered view that they are now only pretending to care to prey on the politically vulnerable few in an effort to garner some support for their dissipated rag-tag party. Dion Foulkes, Neko Grant and Zhivargo could care less whether you live or die; they will go overboard for their family members and friends, as was done by the former privileged minister of state when he reduced the rate of customs duties which ended up facilitating his sister-in-law in paying her customs duties at a rate less than what was legislated.
Even the losing FNM candidates wanted to get in on the bashing act; Kwasi Thompson says we should focus on the 42 persons whose contracts will not be renewed and think about the negative affect their termination will have on their families. Well what I would ask Kwasi, in response, is where was he when worse happened in 2007 when they came to office and what explanation can he give for him saying nothing when Mrs. Carolyn Kinglocke’s three-year contract, at housing, was cancelled and she dismissed summarily without a penny in compensation? Why didn’t he appeal to Ingraham for the families which were adversely affected by their actions? Norris Bain had something to say as well; he said “We are not hurting people who don’t have an entitlement to the Bahamas. We are actually hurting Bahamians and I personally realize that it is a fact we must believe in Bahamians and this certainly doesn’t send the message that we believe in Bahamians and that we are looking out for Bahamians,” unquote. What a damn hypocrite; we can assure Norris Bain that we will employ Bahamians; we will not employ any foreigners in these jobs; they may not be the Bahamians that Norris Bain, Neko Grant, KWASI Thompson and Zhivargo Laing wish to see hired but they will be Bahamians. And just listen to what Dion Foulkes had to say, “I think the PLP has a view that all of the staff of Urban Renewal currently are FNM supporters; that the PLP does not have the right to take their jobs away and if they do there will be a series of protests:” well, well, well; isn’t this one of the cabinet ministers who participated in the mass firings of all the urban renewal workers in 2007 and the hundreds of others from the civil service in the years that followed between 2007 and 2012? You damn right this is the culprit; Get over it you bastards; the PLP will employ Bahamians who will gladly carry out its mandate and support its Urban Renewal 2.0 program. We will not employ your damn agents (Dion) who will work against our programs and do all they can to scuttle them.
Leon Williams was fired, as well, (guys) but not only was he fired; he was also BANNED from working in his field, in the region, for three years so how do you square that low down dirty deed, by your government, with your conscious Kwasi Thompson?
Forrester J Carroll J.P. Freeport, Grand Bahama
Oswald Brown On Sir Jack Hayward
Oswald Brown, the former Editor of the Freeport News contributed this comment on his Facebook page on Wednesday 4th July. He recounted the views of Sir Jack Hayward, Chairman of the Grand Bahama Port Authority on the Progressive Liberal Party.
SIR JACK'S DECLARATION: When I saw Sir Jack Hayward, co-owner of the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA), declare during an interview on ZNS-News 13 tonight that he is "PLP All The Way," you could tell by the contented look on his face that he is indeed happy with the decision made by the Bahamian people on May 7 in electing the PLP as the government of The Bahamas.
And he should indeed be happy. For almost three years, former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham waged a personal "war" against Sir Jack and the GBPA because of his dislike for Hannes Babak, the former chairman of the GBPA, whose work permit Ingraham personally refused to renew in December of 2009 for reasons that were never made clear.
Ingraham did "mend fences," so to speak, with Sir Jack after the GBPA co-owner appointed Ian Fair as chairman of the GBPA to replace Babak a couple months before the May 7 election, but there is a body of opinion that Sir Jack "gave in" to pressure from Ingraham to make that appointment after Ingraham publicly threatened to "deal with the GBPA" after the election, apparently convinced that the FNM would have won.
With certain provisions of the Hawksbill Creek Agreement set to expire in 2015, clearly Sir Jack made a wise decision, knowing from more than two years of experience how vindictive and spiteful Ingraham can be. However, the FNM lost, and Sir Jack may have really been "rubbing it in" when he said that he is "PLP All The Way."
Sir Jack also had high praise for the appointment of Dr. Michael Darville as Minister for Grand Bahama, further evidence that great things are on the horizon for Grand Bahama now that a government is in place that is committed to work in partnership with the GBPA to revive Grand Bahama's economy and restore Freeport's nickname as "The Magic City."July 2012.
IN PASSING
New P S For Foreign Affairs Changes are reportedly coming to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Permanent Secretary Dr Patricia Rodgers is to move from the Ministry. No word on where to.
Trinidad Does Not Get Its Way On CCJ
Kamala Persad Bicessar, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, did not get her way at the Conference of Heads of Government with regard to amending the Treaty creating the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) which is created to replace the Privy Council in London as the final court of appeal for Caricom countries. At their meeting in St. Lucia last week, Leaders of Caricom rejected the partial accession plan of Trinidad, where Trinidad would only send the criminal appeals to the Court but civil matters continue to go to London. The Bahamas had a watching brief on the matter because many people want the same thing for The Bahamas.
Ingraham Gets ‘Take Out’ From Poop Deck Out West
These are some slow days for the former leader of the country Hubert Ingraham. Many nights you can find him looking for company and for take-out from the Poop Deck West. He orders by phone then comes to pick up hoping that he will find some company to talk to while he waits. He is even shaking the hands of some of his enemies, people he tried to mess up while in office.
The DNA Leaves Out Rodney Moncur?
The Democratic National Alliance (DNA), the party of former FNM Minister Branville McCartney who was defeated in the last general election, with all DNA candidates losing their elections, is still putting up the charade of being a political party. They just don’t get it. It’s over. They need to join one of the major political parties if they want to end up in the Parliament. Anyway, the latest is they have announced the spokesmen from the party for the various ministries, a kind of shadow Cabinet. They listed them and announced them for the public. One name they left off was Rodney Moncur, former leader of the Worker’s Party, who is perhaps more famous and has a great history of activism and who abandoned his party for the DNA, was left off the list. We would guess this is for pissing off the women in the country with his recent comment about them stopping birth control so that the man’s seed can procreate. For his own part, he was quite sanguine about it. He claimed that he supports the move to keep him silent.
Charles Maynard On The Payroll
The report is that Charles Maynard, the former sports minister, who was Hubert Ingraham class clown as a Minister, and is now the Chairman of the FNM, made it clear to the party that he could not be chairman without pay. So some of the FNM faithful have gotten together to provide him a pay cheque. The Corner Motel does not provide enough income it appears.
Ingraham Summons The Generals
Well the closer its gets to 19th July, the more it looks like Hubert Ingraham means to do it. He is going to go as he promised. We still say, we will believe it when we see it. But he summoned 100 generals who are faithful to him to Abaco and asked them to leave Grand Bahama to help him campaign to save the seat for the FNM when he resigns and the bye-election takes place.
Fox Hill Flag Raising
The Fox Hill Constituency Office will hold its annual Flag Raising ceremony to commemorate the 39th anniversary of the Independence of The Bahamas on the Fox Hill Parade on Saturday 14th July. It is a public ceremony. All are invited.
FNM Conclave
The FNM is following the PLP’s playbook to return from defeat by having a conclave at the same place the PLP did when they were defeated in 2007 at Sandals. The FNM met in conclave on Saturday 7th July. No word on what happened there but Chairman Charles Maynard said they would not be playing the blame game but seeking to find answers as to why they lost.
Mitchell At Trixie's Funeral Fred Mitchell MP, Minister of Foreign Affairs, greets Bernadette Christie, wife of the Prime Minister at the funeral of her mother Trixie Hanna at St.. Agnes Church on Saturday 7th July in New Providence.
City Markets Stores Reopen
Rupert Roberts who started out as a worker at City Markets and ended up leaving the employ of Stafford Sands and starting Super Value must have had a special satisfaction to now be the owner and operator of City Markets now re-branded Quality Markets. The store opened their doors again to the public under new ownership last week after the last owners could no longer keep them operating. Former employees of City Markets are owed some three million dollars in compensation which they are unable to collect from the previous owners.
Fox Hill Flag Raising
The Fox Hill Constituency Office will hold its annual Flag Raising ceremony to commemorate the 39th anniversary of the Independence of The Bahamas on the Fox Hill Parade on Saturday 14th July. It is a public ceremony. All are invited. Fox Hill Flag Raising.
FNM Wishes The Country Happy Independence Day.
Foreign Minister To Attend Independence Day Observances In Florida
Fred Mitchell, the Minister of Foreign Affairs will travel to Miami, Florida for the independence day observances of The Bahamas in Florida on Sunday 15th July.
FNM Conclave
The FNM is following the PLP’s playbook to return from defeat by having a conclave at the same place the PLP did when they were defeated in 2007 at Sandals. The FNM met in conclave on Saturday 7th July. No word on what happened there but Chairman Charles Maynard said they would not be playing the blame game but seeking to find answers as to why they lost.
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY BAHAMAS: the Commonwealth of The Bahamas began its fortieth year on 10th July 2012. Next year on 10th July the country will be 40 years old. Remarkable that the time has gone by so quickly and with those dwindling numbers who still remember the first evening and its events that created the new nation. The young seem to be engaged in their country and the people still turn out in their numbers to celebrate the event. Our photo of the week then is that of the capital of The Bahamas, the public square n Nassau, The Bahamas, dressed up for the occasion of its birth now 39 years old and counting. Happy birthday Bahamas!.
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
I WANT TO SERVE ON A BOARD
For some reason this time the attraction of serving on Boards and Committees has been absolutely frantic. It was almost as if the world was going to come to an end because someone was not appointed to a Board or Committee. You have to ask yourself what is up with that. Part of it has to do with the political hay that the FNM sought to make on the delay of the Board appointments. It seemed to focus people’s minds on something that would ordinarily not cause a ripple.
These Boards and Committees, some are styled councils, actually run the nuts and bolts of the various institutions in the country. In some cases they pay stipends and so there may be some monetary reward but in the main they call for free and voluntary service. But the demand was certainly there for the placements. The fact is there were simply too many people chasing after too few spaces and in the mix some got left out.
The Prime Minister and his colleagues are busy explaining and explaining why this one did not get on and the next one didn’t get on but the point is everyone cannot get on, and in many cases it was inadvertence and in other cases there was simply not enough spaces to go around.
One man who was not placed on a board said that the lack of an appointment was inexcusable and it showed that he was not taken seriously by the party, that he was being disrespected. It is not a rational reaction but a reaction all the same. Another man who was appointed to a Board but did to like the appointment that he got said that it showed how he was not held in high esteem in the party. It, a board appointment, obviously has a lot to do with image and for many it shows that they are important and connected.
The fact is the Board appointments last for one year. Perhaps there will be an opportunity to look at them again. But in the scheme of things, this pales in comparison to the larger job which the PLP and its supporters have to do in order to set this country on the right path again.
We have waiting in the wings the devil incarnate in the form of Hubert Ingraham who is said to be sulking up in Abaco bitter about his loss and hoping against hope that he will be called back to rescue the nation.
So we hope that in the aggregate that people will calm down about these Boards and Committees and Council appointments and see them for what they are in the larger scheme of things. It’s time to move on and govern. Those who are good supporters can continue to be good supporters. Being on a board and committee does not make you good or bad supporter. It’s good to be on one but it isn’t necessary to be on one.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 14th July 2012 up to midnight: 110,949
Number of hits for the month of July up to Saturday 14th July 2012 up to midnight: 217,289
Number of hits for the year 2012 up to Saturday 14th July 2012 up to midnight:4,354,796
The Charter for Governance which is the platform of the Progressive Liberal Party for the campaign of 2012 talks about the convening of a conference or congress of Bahamians from across the nation to mark the 40th anniversary of the nation’s independence. The idea of the conference or congress is to get Bahamians from across the land to have a look at their country and determine where the country has come from and where it should be going. The point is if such a conference is going to be successful, we had better start planning it now. This brings us to the point of these present and past celebrations. It seems to us that Independence is almost treated like an afterthought. There is not enough planning in advance for the event, and the monies are often transferred to the entities that must carry out their responsibilities at the last minute. The missions overseas should all without fail have formal celebrations to mark the independence of the country and no excuse should be given as to why they were not held. The same for each island. The smaller communities in New Providence ought to also take page out of the Fox Hill book and have special celebrations to mark the day. It is an important day in our history and should not be treated as an afterthought.
URBAN RENEWAL’S FORMAL LAUNCH
The Bahamas government led by Perry Christie has formally launched the Urban Renewal programme with great fanfare and flourish on Wednesday 11th July. The government last week appointed an Urban Renewal Commission to superintendent the effort. It is Co-chaired by former Deputy Prime Minister Cynthia Pratt and former Minister of Youth Algernon Allen. The launch took place at the headquarters of the Royal Bahamas Police Force in the presence of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet and the Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade. The photos are by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services.
PLP ISSUES STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF URBAN RENEWAL
The following statement was issued by the Progressive Liberal Party on the Urban Renewal Programme:
Press Statement Progressive Liberal Party PLPexpresses support for theUrban RenewalCommission 13th July 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Progressive Liberal Party congratulates the government on and unreservedly support the recent creation of the Urban Renewal 2.0 Commission. We believe this policy making body is a truly national commission because it encompasses broad representation from civil society that will ensure the relevance of its policy formations in this all important fight against the scourge of crime.
The commission provides the necessary structure to facilitate the proper function of the program and to insulate it from political interference, a charge that has dogged the program in the past. The Prime Minister reiterated his commitment to the program’s independence when he said: “So I am going to demonstrate my commitment to the programme by creating it but stepping back.” We in the PLP applaud this approach.
The Prime Minister was also determined to ensure that the face of the community was represented by Urban Renewal 2.0 when he said “we really wanted to demonstrate that if we could find someone who has been exposed to public life, who has had the experience of dealing with the inner city, who has had the experience of dealing with the young people and who has a personality capable of adaptation, being able to adjust to circumstances that are changing,” then the program would have achieved that objective.
Cynthia “Mother” Pratt and Algernon Allen met those lofty criteria and the PLP fully endorses their leadership appointments.
We concur with the Prime Minister that Urban Renewal 2.0 cannot be relevant and therefore cannot succeed if it is administered with a text book approach. The education and knowledge that the police officers acquire cannot be gained through any class room, college or university, but through their daily experiences in the communities they serve. These experiences must be accurately reflected in the public policies that govern Urban Renewal.
According to Prime Minister Christie, if “the strategies, the policies, do not embrace knowledge of what is happening, and therefore if you do not have public policy being informed properly and accurately, it is not relevant to what is happening. So we have to become relevant.”
The PLP believes that the Prime Minister has taken the correct structural, functional and philosophical approach to Urban Renewal 2.0 and we are confident that with the full partnership of the community, the police and the broader civil society, The Bahamas will succeed in breaking the back of this insidious twin called the scourge of crime and social decay.
WHAT THE PEOPLE IN LONG ISLAND WANT
They are pleased that Senator Alex Storr did a creditable job as the PLP’s standard bearer in the last general election. They know however that Alex Storr lost the seat to Loretta Butler Turner. They think he was a good candidate and he should stay the course and perhaps there might be victory. But one lady said that she is moving from Long Island. She believes that Long Island people are hardened in their ways and will not change. She wants to get out. She could not understand how they used in her mind Alex Storr, made so many promises and in the end they did not vote for him. In the north of Long island this was especially disheartening they say: people were supposed to vote in much larger numbers for the PLP than they did to offset the hard hearts of the south of Long Island. But nevertheless, the PLP won all the polling divisions in the north of Long Island and the PLP ought to do something for those communities. The Bridgewater and O’Neal roads should be repaired. The campaign workers for the FNM in BEC and the packing house who should have remained neutral should be sent packing and so they say should the fisheries officer. They believe that Bahamasair should return to flying to Stella Maris. They believe that the Deadman's Cay airport should be repaired, extended and immigration and customs services put there. They believe that the people of Dunmore’s who stood with the PLP should have something special done for them. In the scheme of things, these are not major things. But money is tight and there are 29 constituencies who voted PLP who are crying for help. Let us hope though that the PLP does not forget its friends in Long Island, the island of the founder of the PLP.
JOB RECOVERY TO BE SLOW
When the present economic crisis started it was the year 2008. Fred Mitchell MP for Fox Hill spoke in the House of Assembly and he recalled that he had been going through the homes of his constituents and found that many of them even though living in palatial homes did not have food to eat. He recalled the dream which Joseph of biblical times interpreted for the Egyptian pharaoh. Joseph told him that there would be seven years of plenty and seven lean years. He told him to save up during the years of plenty and that would carry you through the lean years. Unfortunately for The Bahamas, we had already entered the seven year period of lean years. By that reckoning it means that it will not be before 2015 that the economic situation in our country will turn around. We recall this because there was a headline in the paper last week in the business section which said that the job situation in the country will not turnaround until 2016. Things are desperate in this country. People are despairing. It is as if they have lost the intellectual means to comprehend how to deal with emergencies. They press Members of Parliament for government jobs. Their situation is the only one and there is no contextualizing of what is happening as part of a larger picture. Everyone wants something and they want it now. Of course this is the byproduct of the kind of electoral system which we operate: a bidding game between two political parties about who can most successfully seduce the voter with the greatest promises. What is certain is that the government cannot hire everyone. It is simply impossible. The government cannot meet all the promises and expectations that were made in the last election campaign. It is impossible. It cannot be done. It would bankrupt the country. So what we have left then is a reality check. Patience, hard work, the social safety net and we will all get through. One thing is we do not have these politically insensitive ogres on our backs anymore.
FLAG RAISING IN FOX HILL
The seventh annual Flag Raising ceremony took place in Fox Hill on Saturday evening 14th July. The ceremony was led by the representative for the area Fred Mitchell who is also the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration. It began at the behest of Winston Saunders, the late Mr. Saunders. He was chair of the independence celebrations committee for the government and he asked that communities throughout the nation find individual ways to celebrate the nation’s independence. The idea was to use the flag raising with the young people to inculcate a tradition in Fox Hill. The speaker for the event was Pastor Mario Moxey of Bahamas Harvest Church. The ceremony was organized by Charlene Marshall and officers of the PLP’s constituency branch. The scouts of Fox Hill raised the flag. The photos show the ceremony and the cutting of the anniversary cake by Pastor Moxey surrounded by Pastors from Fox Hill Carrington Pinder, J. Carl Rahming, Leonardo Rahming and Ireme Rolle, Charlene Marshall is also shown.
EXUMA INDEPENDENCE DAY IN PHOTOS
Fred Mitchell MP for Fox Hill and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration attended for the 14th time the annual Independence Day celebrations for The Bahamas in Georgetown, Exuma. The people of Exuma gathered on Regatta Park to mark the occasion of the 39th birthday of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. Mr. Mitchell joined Anthony Moss, MP for Exuma and other civic leaders of Exuma for the occasion. The photos are by Henterro Armbrister. They show an all female detail which raised the flag seeing that this is the 50th year for women voting in The Bahamas and Mr. Mitchell with MP Moss and his wife and the Island Administrator Alexander Ferguson.
MITCHELL SPEAKS ABOUT CARICOM MEETING
HILARY CLINTON WISHES THE BAHAMAS WELL
The following statement was issued by U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton on the occasion of Bahamian Independence Day:
On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I am delighted to send best wishes to the people of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas as you celebrate your 39th anniversary of independence this July 10. This is an occasion to honor the rich history and culture of The Bahamas and the many accomplishments of the Bahamian people.
Our two nations are united by a shared history, common values, and a commitment to democracy and human rights. We work together as partners every day to spur economic development, curb the effects of climate change, promote security, and strengthen gender equality throughout our region. Through the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI), the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Operation Bahamas Turks and Caicos (OPBAT) and our shared commitment to fostering greater prosperity and expanding opportunities for the next generation of leaders, we are building a brighter future for both our countries.
On this special day, know that the United States stands with all Bahamians as a partner and friend. I send you best wishes for continued peace, prosperity and success.
BAHAMIAN/U.S. CONGRESSWOMAN WISHES US WELL
Fredericka Wilson, Congresswoman in the United States sent this message on the occasion of Bahamian Independence Day:
“Today, July 10, 2012, we celebrate Bahamian Independence day. As the descendant of Bahamians, I know firsthand the island nation’s rich culture and proud history. Under British rule for more than 325 years, the struggle for independence was not marked by violence, but by a diligence and persistence that has come to define the Bahamas.
“With a significant Bahamian population in South Florida, including my district, we have been blessed to share in their vibrant culture. From the annual Goombay Festival to the Bahamian cultural celebration being held in West Park this weekend, Bahamians continue to leave their footprints. From Sidney Poitier to Rick Fox, people of Bahamian descent have had a significant impact in the lives of many.
I wish all my constituents from the Bahamas and of Bahamian descent a happy Independence Day.”
STALWART COUNCILOR B WRITES FROM FPO ON HUBERT INGRAHAM
THESE THINGS (SYMBOLS) MEAN SOMETHING
On Tuesday, July 10th, 2012, Governor General of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Sir Arthur Folkes, spoke to invited guests of the Royal Bahamas Police force high command luncheon to celebrate the 39 years of independence. The Governor General gave what I consider a powerful illustration that speaks to the vibrancy of our democracy. He said “these things mean something.” The examples that he gave was from colonial rule to independence: He further went on to speak about general elections, the opening of Parliament with the swearing in of members, and the speech from the throne. All of these processes took place without any upheaval. In a nutshell, it spoke to how Bahamians interact with each other. “These symbols mean something.”
Twenty-three years ago, on a Sunday afternoon in Freeport, at the home of Cochise Hanna, a luncheon was held for Hubert Ingraham. The luncheon was held to introduce Mr. Ingraham to some of the politicos of the city. This was sponsored by Cochise Hanna, the late Sonny Martin, and George Curtis, all of whom were benefactors to Mr. Ingraham. At that luncheon, Mr. Ingraham invited all in attendance to ask him any question and he promised he would answer; and, so he did until the question was asked of him about his religious beliefs. He was also asked if he belong to any particular denomination. On that score, Ingraham stumbled and became very uneasy, and somewhat annoyed. At that point, his old friend Sonny Martin sensing that Ingraham was caught in a sticky wicket answered for him. Martin said that the only time Ingraham went to church was when he was looking for votes. Then the moment was made lighter but Ingraham never answered the question. The question was asked then, because like Sir Arthur’s pronouncement, “these things mean something”.
Fast forward to 2012 general election campaign: It started with Ingraham breaking tradition and not allowing retiring members of parliament the opportunity to say their final farewells and thank you(s) to their constituents. This was in spite of an agreement between government leader in the house, and opposition leader; nevertheless, Ingraham broke that agreement.
Next up was the attack on Dame Marguerite Pindling, widow of the father of the nation. On the campaign trail in Andros, Ingraham took his hat off and spoke of “obeah” an unseemly act for a person in such high office. Then he took on his former law partners, Prime Minister Christie and Deputy Prime Minister Davis; his verbal assaults on Mr. Christie were relentless and unparalleled. On the day that Deputy Prime Minister Davis was laying his father to rest in Nassau; Ingraham led a delegation to Cat Island to exploit that tender moment. Common decency dictated that Ingraham should have observed a ceasefire but, par for the course, this too, meant nothing to him.
On July 19th, 2012, Parliament will not be in session: This is the day that Ingraham promises that he will retire from active politics. So he will either issue a simple press statement informing the Speaker of the House of his resignation; or, call a press conference to announce his retirement. Unlike the “father” of the nation, Sir Lynden (deceased) who walked into Parliament, head held high, and first beg the pardon of all those he had offended along the way; and, then turn to the Bahamian people and said thank you and farewell. With those words, he surrendered his political sword and walked quietly into his political sunset, at peace with himself, and his fellow Bahamians.
Based on the antics of Mr. Ingraham, the second Prime Minister in an independent Bahamas, the question must be asked, “Is Mr. Ingraham really gone?” Is it possible that we will see a taliban like insurgency develop with sleeper cells ready to strike at a moment’s notice? Yes Sir Arthur, “these things mean something”.
Stalwart B
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Forrester Carroll writes from Freeport on the FNM and they’re not getting used to the fact that they have lost the general election. He predicts that there will be a long time before they are able to get their act together, with Hubert Ingraham having left their party in shambles.
“Politicians, who have just lost office, should not allow DEFEAT to cause them to lose their political right minds, with the use of selective memory, pompous lecturing and sickening OBFUSCATION” unquote. I extracted this statement from the response of Hon. Foreign minister to Tommy Turnquest who admitted to the press (in effect) that he, Hubert Ingraham and their FNM government collaborated with the United States Authorities to spy on the Bahamas; they agreed to allow the United States government to fly secret Drone missions over our country without ensuring the Bahamian people were privy to what was going on. Not only did they permit the act of aggression but the outgoing FNM government did not exercise the usual courtesies, which were their obligation, in briefing the incoming PLP government of the flights. In point of fact, at the time it was done, the PLP’s shadow foreign minister and the opposition leader should have been briefed; they’re not briefing them is indicative of the degree of contempt and intolerance Ingraham and his government held for Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition. By permission I reprinted the opening statement above (by the Hon. Fred Mitchell) because I feel it succinctly describes the posture of this defeated bunch (the FNM), post 7th May 2012. Simply put, the FNM have not collected their senses and are running to and fro like chickens that have lost their heads, not knowing what to do in opposition and hoping that 2017 would come quickly; they are certainly a bunch of confused ninnies.
Having stood by helplessly (year after year for five year) watching while racking up five consecutive record-breaking years of murder rates in the country; as unemployment climb from 7.6% in 2007 to 15.9% nationally, with 22% in Grand Bahama and 34% among the youth; while home foreclosures rose to one out of every three current mortgages (on the books) collapsing in the country; while the starvation and misery indexes jump to an all time high (with families sleeping in their cars on beaches) but now they come, two months after losing the general elections, trying to pin what resulted from their five years of miss-management, neglect and recklessness on the PLP? Not only that but the bold-faced suckers had the gull to call for the resignation of the minister for national security just after a prisoner-patient escaped briefly from custody while being attended to at the PMH? Have they forgotten that prisoner escapes were almost a weekly occurrence while they were in office? I didn’t hear Hubert Minnis calling for Tommy Turnquest’s resignation at those times did you? If my memory serves me correctly, I recall the same prisoner escaping twice, in as many days, but Minnis didn’t think that Turnquest ought to have resigned his post did he, the damn hypocrite? As a matter of fact wasn’t a nurse killed, as well, during the process of one of those escapes? I didn’t hear any calls for Tommy’s head from Minnis, Charles or anyone else, did any of you? This bunch, I am now convinced, truly believes that they governed well; they are certainly in denial of their incompetence at governance during 2007-2012 which shows just how out of touch they were. The Hon. Fred Mitchell hit the nail on the head; OBFUCATION has set in and the rag-tag bunch is like a ship heading, full steam ahead, for the rocks with no rudder to keep it on course; they are certainly in a state of mass confusion.
More of their confused state of mind is revealed in the fact that they are going about their role, as a supposedly responsible official opposition, in an obvious disoriented manner. It is not my intention to offer Charles and Hubert Minnis any good advice except what should be very obvious to them and that is that they should be giving themselves at least six months to re-group and re-focus. Give yourselves time to grieve fellows; get over the fact that Ingraham left you in shambles-in a worse position than he met you-collect your thoughts and move forward with some degree of focus. As of now guys you are looking like a bunch of clowns; brain-dead jackasses. There’s no point in trying to blame the present bad situation, in the country, on the PLP; that will not work and why will it not work you ask? Because the Bahamian people know already that it is you guys who left us in this mess. Besides the next polling is five years away and five years, when one is in the political wilderness, is like a lifetime; you are too anxious fellows; settle down, take your licks and compose yourselves for the fight ahead of you.
The Chairman (FNM), instead of attending to the management of his party’s internal affairs, is out and about holding press conferences calling on our prime minister to name his board members; what concern is that of his? Ingraham was never as early as this with the public announcement of his board appointees; but I ask again what has that to do with Charles Maynard and the FNM? Mind your own damn business young man and pray, earnestly, that the two individuals, who are allegedly supplying the money to the FNM to pay your salary, each week, remain in good health for as long as Minnis keeps you on as his chairman. Minnis’ mission, I can tell you, is to rid the FNM of all you guys who were back-side kissers to that damn dictator Hubert Ingraham and so the internal fighting will continue until he accomplishes his goal. A writer, (calling him or herself Stalwart B) a couple weeks ago, on this very site, likened this FNM bunch to lemmings; as a matter of fact the person created and awarded the bunch with what they called the “Bahamas uncensored Lemmings Award of the year.” I wondered, at the time, why would Stalwart B see team FNM in that light-as a bunch of lemmings-then I viewed the YouTube video, which was uploaded to the site, showing the little rodent-like creatures in their natural environment; I readily concluded that Stalwart B must have associated them with that part of the Lemming’s nature which drives them (year after year) to march blindly behind a stupid leader who takes them right over a mountainous cliff and into the ocean where they begin swimming out to sea to nowhere special until the high waves overcome them all, drowning them in the process. The little creatures seem to be so stupid (I know there is a purpose in nature to what they do instinctively) for following so blindly, year after year, the stupid leader to their deaths. Seems to me that these FNM’s have done the same; following Hubert Ingraham, I mean, so blindly for so long that they cannot now think for themselves without him; they are all like a nest of ants which have lost their queen and are totally disorientated; their political deaths are inevitable. They should have learned, by now, that when one would have twisted themselves into a pretzel, sooner or later the contortions will hurt.
The verbal discourse between Mitchell and Tommy came about because Tommy interjected himself (uninvited) into the fray of the conversation the Hon. Foreign minister was having concerning the matter of the American Drones flying over the Bahamas during the FNM’s recent period in office. No one asked Tommy anything about it but I guess he still thinks of himself as someone of great importance but I have news for him. In any event the foreign minister fixed his business. Turnquest, instead of offering to brief the foreign minister, as I opined earlier, about the incident as he should have done before leaving office, went on to respond to the Hon. Foreign minister, through the press no less, admitting responsibility for granting the Americans the leverage to carry out the mission. But to add insult to injury he proceeded, in his press briefing, to lecture the Hon. Foreign minister and to attempt belittling him publicly. Well all of us who know the foreign minister know very well that those kinds of things don’t sit well with him and so Tommy got his business fixed; Mitchell responded to him with the above opening statement of this article. From all that I’ve been hearing, Tommy “Tucker” Turnquest should concern himself with what is going on right within his own party ranks. I’ve been hearing all sorts of bad news tantamount to the party self-destructing from within. I am told that the war between Tommy’s and Dion’s faction, and the new leadership, is so intense that if you cut either of them, like the old people would say, neither of them would bleed. Minnis, I am told, fired Tommy from whatever position he held on the party’s leadership team and asked him not to ever again, as long as he (Minnis) is leader, have anything to say, or do, in the party’s affairs. This should be of grave concern to Tommy and crew; this is where they ought to expend their energies and desist from interfering in the affairs of the PLP. If we need their advice we will ask for it but if I were them I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Seems like Kelly Burrows (Ingraham’s biggest general in Freeport for years) sees the handwriting on the wall and, I am told, he did so well before Election Day; I am told he and his family abandoned that sinking ship before it hit the rocks on May 7th 2012. On May 7th he (Kelly) took the advice Jesus gave his disciples (after they toiled all night fishing and caught nothing) to cast their nets on the other side. Kelly, and his lovely wife, I am told, made a conscientious decision to support the PLP and he told Ingraham as much. Tommy, I am told, could not believe it; I couldn’t believe it myself having been told by Kelly himself, only a year prior, that he was a UBP/FNM and could never vote for the PLP. Shocked, I am told, Tommy telephoned Kelly to confirm, one way or the other the facts; if what he was hearing was the truth; after confirming that Mr. Burrows did in fact abandon Ingraham Tommy’s response to Kelly was that his reason (s) given for abandoning the party could be multiplied a thousand times throughout the country; that Ingraham drove much of the party’s base support to the PLP for exactly what he did to Kelly and how he treated this long time party stalwart.
Oh yes there is trouble in that camp and Minnis nor Loretta Butler-Turner will be able to put that humpty-dumpty back together again. The Negros are loose on that FNM plantation (to quote a friend of mine) and there is nothing either of the two of them (together or apart) could do at this point to corral them.
Thank you Forrester J Carroll J.P Freeport, Grand Bahama July 2012.
IN PASSING
FNM Turns To Rejected PLP Candidates In Abaco
They say that Hubert Ingraham, the former FNM leader, sulking as he is after his loss wanted John Swain, the accountant to get the nomination to run for the FNM in North Abaco when he resigns or we should say if he resigns as promised on 19th July. The Prime Minister Perry Christie said last week that he will wait to see what happens with the resignation of Mr. Ingraham promised for 19th July and the possible bye-election before he decides when the referendum will be held on gambling in the country. He was right to strike a note of caution because you cannot trust anything that Hubert Ingraham says. Any way the now leader of the FNM promised the press last week that by Thursday night 12th July he would have made his choice for the nominee, but the meeting went on until 11:30 p.m. without making a choice. The four candidates said Dr. Hubert Minnis were so outstanding that they couldn’t decide. But what is more likely is the note in the Nassau Guardian which said that they adjourned so they could check with Hubert Ingraham before they could decide. One man who says he will not speak to Hubert Ingraham is Cay Mills one of the two former PLP possible candidates who are now seeking to get the FNM’s nomination. Mr. Mills does not have a chance in hell in getting the nomination because he and Hubert Ingraham cannot go two steps. Mr. Mills when questioned by the FNM’s Janet Bostwick on the point told her that he would not speak to Mr. Ingraham because Mr. Ingraham said that he is out, so he should stay out. The other PLP candidate who is seeking the FNM nomination is Jackson McIntosh. This is a remarkable development. Mr. McIntosh was given a position as an administrator under Perry Christie. He was terminated by Mr. Ingraham and then Mr. Ingraham's people started a vicious campaign of propaganda about him. He lost the bid for the PLP's nomination to Renardo Curry and now he is seeking Mr. Ingraham's support to get the FNM nomination. Wonders never cease. The other two candidates are Greg Gomez and Perry Thomas. Mr. Gomez is said to be a former administrator.
Fred Mitchell In Long Island
Fred Mitchell MP for Fox Hill paid a visit to the people of Long Island for Independence. He has been twinning the visit with the Exuma Independence trip for at least seven years. This time the visit took place on Friday 13th July and Saturday 14th July.
Independence Day For The Bahamas In South Florida
Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell will join the Bahamian community in South Florida for the Independence Day celebrations being held there in Florida at the New Mt. Olive Baptist Church 400 Northwest 9th Ave, Ft. Lauderdale beginning at 3 p.m. It is a public service and there will be a reception following the service. The Consul General in Miami is Rhoda Jackson.
What They Prayed For At FNM Conclave
The prayer at the FNM conclave on 7th July at Sandals was quite unusual. You will remember that their last leader Hubert Ingraham went to great lengths to decrease the number of seats in the House of Assembly from the then 41 to 38. Some of his own people suffered because of it. But like the lemmings that they all are, they followed the Pied Piper to their doom. But at the conclave the chaplain as she was praying said in part "Oh Lord and let us hope that the seats will be increased from 38 seats back up to 42.” Now that’s what you call a prayer. It says much about the real state of that party and the fact that the rank and file never agreed with Hubert Ingraham’s decision. The things we pray for.
Phenton Neymour Not At The Party
Phenton Neymour says that he still intends to be the representative for Exuma, defeating whoever the PLP puts up the next time around. He has five years to work for it. He has been hanging around Exuma trying to make friends over the last week since his defeat. In the mean time, he might try watching Law and Order, the TV programme on the beach in Exuma. He will have plenty of time. Mr. Neymour distinguished himself by saying that one of the reasons he wanted the government to sell BTC, the then Bahamian government owned phone company, was so he could lay on the beach in Exuma and watch Law and Order on his phone. Well the phone company is sold and you still can’t watch Law and Order on the beach. You can hardly get a phone call, the service by Cable and Wireless is so lousy. But it looks like Mr. Neymour’s party isn’t taking him seriously because they did not invite him to the conclave they held last Saturday 7th July at Sandals in Nassau. Poor Phenton. What’s with that?
Leader Of The Opposition’s Days Are Numbered
While the PR blurb kept saying that the conclave held by the FNM on Saturday 7th July was a success, little bits and pieces keep leaking out which suggest that all is not well. Chief rumour coming out is that Hubert Ingraham, the former Prime Minister and leader of the FNM, is still sulking and bitter about his loss. He has picked up the marbles and gone home. But he will not stop trying to manipulate the results from behind the scenes. He is trying at every turn to stop the present leader Hubert Minnis in his tracks and make sure that he fails. People call this latest ploy by Mr. Ingraham, the John Compton strategy. John Compton was called back by his party in St. Lucia at the age of 83 to lead back to victory. Mr. Ingraham is hoping for one more come back. He cannot afford for Hubert Minnis to succeed. The folk at the conclave say that Dr Minnis, bless his heart, just doesn’t have it. He’s enthusiastic and tried to let that lack of charisma be made up with enthusiasm but the troops are uninspired. They say you can count his reign in weeks. We have a watching brief. It’s none of our business really.
Upset In Abaco At Police Promotions
In Abaco the folk up there are upset. Police Reserve promotions were announced last week and a man who is the FNM Chairman and on the reserves in South Abaco got a promotion over PLPs. This made people furious and a letter was written expressing disappointment, arguing that it appears that while the FNM has lost the election they appear to still be in charge.
Mark Bethel BFM Singer Dies
The death of the popular singer and Pastor Mark Bethel of Myles Davis’ Bahamas Faith Mission (BFM) came as a shock to those who knew and loved him. Pastor Bethel died on Wednesday 11th July. No doubt the funeral will be huge. Tributes were posted to him on Facebook like the photo from Kevin Harris’ page and we present the video below.
Anthonique Strachan Wins In Madrid
She won both the 100 metres and 200 metres. She is Anthonique Strachan and she is diminutive, unassuming and the kind of girl you would like to take home to mother. O’jay Ferguson was supposed to be the star of these games but looks like injury took its toll. Well it was great to hear the national anthem of The Bahamas playing in Madrid at the IAAF Junior World Championships: beat Jamaica and the United States and effortlessly so. So you can watch the 200 metre race and then the presentation of the medals.
Anthonique On The Podium
Frank Ocean’s Declaration
His real name is Christopher Breaux but he performs under the name Frank Ocean. He is a talented rapper and R & B singer. But that’s not why he is famous or infamous as the case might be at this moment in time. In what has been described as a heteronormative world, rap was rocked to its foundations with the announcement that he Frank Ocean is gay and has been in same sex relationships. Time for a reality check in a world of homothugs and down low people, someone has now come out. He got support from the royalty of the genre Jay Z and his wife Beyonce. So that was that. Then on 17th July he launched on iTunes his debut album Channel Orange. The cut we sample is Bad Religion. Pretty good!
Political Hubert Watching
The Prime Minister set the cat amongst the pigeons with Hubert watching when he said that after 19th July, we shall see
what Hubert Ingraham, the former Prime Minister does. That is the day Mr. Ingraham says that he will resign from the House
and bring to an end his political career. We of course do not believe it. We think that he is stenching and trying to get the masses
calling for him to come back. Please don't go, is the cry he is listening for. Witness, the letter to the press on Saturday 14th July,
The Nassau Guardian, where Mr. Ingraham's backer or so it appears savaged Dr. Hubert Minnis, the now Leader of the FNM, saying in effect
that he is incompetent and needs Mr. Ingraham's steady hand and so Mr. Ingraham should stay. These letters have been appearing in the
press with increasing frequency. The talk in the FNM is that he wants to come back. That he has set up Mr. Minnis to fail. That the new leader was
sorely embarrassed by not checking out one of the candidates Greg Gomez who does not have the residential qualification to run for office and so egg was all
over the face of Dr. Minnis for going with Mr. Gomez on the recommendation of Mr. Ingraham. Mr. Gomez was up until last year reportedly a resident
of the United States. Well whether Mr. Ingraham goes or stays, matters not. He will be beaten and beaten soundly. So he may as well go.
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NOT EVERY GOODBYE IS GONE: the corollary to that is not every shut eye is sleep. That is a wonderful expression we sometimes use in this country to explain someone who likes to fool you and put on a show, and how you actually have to look behind what is happening. That is how we describe what Hubert Ingraham, the former Prime Minister, did last week as he purported to resign from Parliament effective 31st August. The long goodbye. Mr. Ingraham simply put is a liar. In a fit of petulance, he announced that he would not take up his seat on the night that he lost the election. Then he took his seat and took the oath, then went running like the coward that he is out of the House so he would not have to face the newly elected PLP members. Next he said he would resign on 19th July, the anniversary of his election to Parliament. It turns out that he still won’t be gone on that day. He lied again. He is actually going to resign on 31st August. Some excuse about wanting Greg Gomez one of the FNM potential candidates who has a residency issue to be able to qualify to run for Abaco. But with him, it’s always an excuse and we say what we said from the beginning: we will believe it when we see it. Our photo of the week was that of Hubert Ingraham delivering to the Speaker what he said was his resignation letter to take effect on 31st August. The photo is by Peter Ramsay.
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
IN LIKE A PIG OUT LIKE A HOG
There is no other way to say this than to say it. Hubert Ingraham our former Prime Minister is an inveterate and incorrigible liar. There is nothing that he says that you can trust. His performance last week as he purported to resign showed that more than ever. He is a jackass. As they like to say in the country amongst the people: something gatta be wrong with his head. We add something gatta be wrong with the heads of the people around him and support the foolishness.
It was Wendell Jones, the talk show host who offered the comment that Mr. Ingraham died badly last week. He thought that he was going to have a great deal of support and excitement. They say that the press corps was really excited. Candia Dames of the Nassau Guardian and the rest of them were happy to have their hero back in the spotlight, as he slashed and burned. The problem is: his is a tired and worn out act. As one gentleman from up north put it: Mr. Ingraham is like the lizard’s tail when chopped off. It’s still jumping but the tail is dead.
We prefer to describe Mr. Ingraham like one of those mongrel dogs in The Bahamas that we call potcakes. They are famous for barking after you leave the premises, all sound and fury but signifying nothing. However, you describe what happened last week when Mr. Ingraham announced his so called resignation, it was shameful, disgraceful and simply infra dig.
When his predecessor Lynden Pindling, the country’s first Prime Minister, left office after 40 years in Parliament in 1997, he left graciously. He had come in 1956 a young man, rough around the edges with a wife who had to learn the art of politics from scratch. When they left the scene, they were a dignified and gracious couple with their reputations intact. Hubert Ingraham is the exact opposite. His reputation is in tatters. He comes off as a complete and natural ass who simply has the inability to know the difference between fact and fiction.
He claimed that the PLP victimized the lady Coralee Adderley fired last week from the Public Hospitals Authority: this from the chief victimizer himself of policemen, customs officers and immigration officers.
He claimed that BTC will to be sold and that Prime Minster Perry Christie is telling a different story to the public than he is telling to BTC’s owners Cable and Wireless. The truth is that representatives have been set by both sides to facilitate the retaking of the property from Cable and Wireless.
He did a double team on the Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade using his lackey Zhivargo Laing, the former Minister. The day before Mr. Ingraham's so called resignation Mr. Laing attacked the Commissioner of Police. The former Prime Minister came behind to say that Mr. Laing was right and that the Commissioner of Police told him a different story about the success of Urban Renewal than the one he is now telling under the PLP. The Commissioner rightly refused to comment on an attack by a politician which was unseemly and improper.
Then he claimed that the PLP was beholden to gambling interests and that was why the PLP was holding a referendum on gambling. Of course, he intended to hold the very same referendum if he had won to decide the question of gambling in The Bahamas. But with Mr. Ingraham, you never let the truth interfere with a good story.
Hubert Ingraham died badly last week. Someone described his career as coming in like a pig and going out like a hog. A smoking, lumbering, aimless fire breathing dragon. He is tiresome, foolish, stupid. As William Butler Yeats would have said: a vainglorious lout. He should go quietly into that good night.
Number of hits for the week for the week ending Saturday 21st July,2012 up to midnight: 103,162
Number of hits for the month of July up to Saturday 21st July, 2012 up to midnight: 332,546
Number of hits for the year 2012 up to Saturday 21st July, 2012 up to Saturday 21st July up to midnight: 4,470,053
The following statement was issued by Bradley Roberts, Chairman of the Progressive Liberal Party, in response to the statements of Hubert Ingraham, former Prime Minister, at his press conference on Thrsday19th July.
Statement by Bradley B. Roberts National Chairman Progressive Liberal Party On Hubert Ingraham’s Press Conference 19thJuly 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THE COMMISSIONER OF POLICE
It is a crying shame that a former Prime Minister would attack the Commissioner of Police who is not in a position in our system to defend himself against political attacks. Mr. Ingraham should know better. Much more is expected of him. But we are not surprised. This is the Prime Minister who so politicized the police force that he took away the independence of the Commissioner of Police by subjecting the constitutionally protected office to a contractual term. This is the same man who forcibly retired police officers who his government suspected were not his political supporters and sent them home without the dignity and respect they deserved in their office. This is the same man who did not allow my former cabinet colleague and Deputy Prime Minister Cynthia "Mother" Pratt and others the dignity and grace to say farewell in the House of Assembly to her constituents. He has a nerve.
Instead of going quietly into the sunset, he is making of himself an embarrassing spectacle.
Under this current administration the PLP has freed the Commissioner of Police to be the Commissioner of Police, to speak freely and to determine the priorities and actions of the Force. The government intends to go further and will seek by legislation as early as next week to remove the unconstitutional limitation on the Commissioner of Police's term in office, as we said we would do during the campaign. We congratulate the Commissioner on the work that he is doing in the force and in fighting crime and the stellar results he is achieving.
THE ISSUE OF GAMBLING
The PLP is not any more beholden to gambling interests than the FNM. The PLP is not in fact beholden at all. We said in our Charter for Governance that we would put the issue to the people. It was clear, concise and straightforward. The government is currently drafting legislation for Parliament to enable the carrying out of that promise. But I remind the public that it was Hubert Ingraham who as Minister of Finance caused the studies with the cooperation of the number’s houses to be done to determine the revenue streams, method of operating and possible tax potential of the sector. He did this to facilitate the drafting of legislation to facilitate legalizing the sector. The FNM gave the sector the expectation that legalization was coming but Mr. Ingraham got cold feet in the face of opposition by the church leaders. He too then promised a referendum to decide the issue. In that there is no difference in policy between the PLP and the FNM. So if the PLP is beholden for holding a referendum, then the FNM must accept that they are as well.
BTC
The Prime Minister made a statement that the PLP will fulfill the government’s promise to regain the majority share in BTC. There is no stepping back from that. There is no private understanding on the issue. As Minister responsible for BTC, he met with the principals of Cable and Wireless and told them of the government's intention. Since then, he has received a letter in writing from Cable and Wireless constituting their negotiating team to settle the issue of regaining the majority of the shares. The Prime Minister has already secured three well known Bahamian personalities to negotiate from the government’s side. The issue is quite advanced. I need say no more save just watch as this government performs.
Mr. Ingraham is simply showing bad form, a bitter and angry individual who has lost touch with the political realities. He must move on and move on quietly and quickly lest he embarrass himself further.
--END--
YOUNG LIBERALS AT WORK
This photo of the Progressive Young Liberals, the junior arm of the PLP, on a visit to the Bilney Road children’s home on 14th July. This appeared on their Facebook page.
CLAY SWEETING GETS MARRIED
Clay Sweeting who at the age of 26 was the youngest candidate in the last general election, is no longer a single man. He was married on Saturday 14th July in Spanish Wells to the former Delia Sweeting. Many of his colleagues from the PLP attended the wedding including the Prime Minister Perry Christie. The photo appeared on his Facebook page. We are told that the comment was made that only Obie Wilchombe, Minister of Tourism and Fred Mitchell, Minister of Foreign Affairs are left now. Meaning that the two are still bachelors and MPs.
FITZGERALD ON SCHOOL REPAIRS
The proactive Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald is on his game. He wants to be sure that the schools are repaired and up and running when the bell rings in the fall. So the contracts for school repairs have been let and that means the repairs have begun. This time he is trying to share things around so that the same people don’t end up getting the contracts and that in addition what we have is shared around as much as possible. He issued a press statement on 15th July to explain what he is doing.
Wednesday 18th July was Nelson Mandela day in The Bahamas and around the world. It was the 94th birthday of the South African icon. His family and friends have organized various charitable trusts and on that day encouraged people around the world for 67 minutes to do some good for their friends and neighbours. In The Bahamas Joan Rolle, of the Catholic Education system, organized an event sponsored by Sandals the hotel operators, to support Mandela’s legacy. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell was invited to speak at the summer camp for young people at Xavier’s Lower School. Mr. Mitchell said that Mr. Mandela was a great man. He said that what he most admired about Mr. Mandela was that he knew when it was time to leave the public stage. He said that so many things are said that are negative about people of African descent that it was good to be able to have a man of such sterling character to look up to. You may click here for his full remarks. The photo is by The Tribune of the planting of a pomegranate tree and the cutting of the birthday cake at the Xavier’s Lower school. The photos are by Patrick Hanna of the Bahamas Information Services.
CYP MCWEENEY, OUR MISS BAHAMAS, CELEBRATES 60
It seemed like yesterday that she was a little girl playing with the Seymours and the Kennys in Collins Avenue. She was the daughter of the storied Freddie Munnings of Cat and the Fiddle fame. She went to school with the now Foreign Minister in Sands School, a one room building which still stands just to the west of The Tribune. It was another world. In that day The Bahamas was in the midst of the fight for equality, and her father was among those who led the fight. She could not have imagined a birthday party at 60 in the home base of the former minority ruler's recreational palace The Nassau Yacht Club, yet she and her friends including the Prime Minister and Mrs. Perry Christie, Dame Marguerite Pindling, the widow of the founder of our country and the Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell, now all grown up, were all there. Other friends and family were there including Deputy Prime Minister Philip Davis and Mrs. Davis, Attorney General Allyson and her husband Max Gibson, Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald and his wife Zarina and of course the husband of the birthday lady Sean McWeeney Q.C. with their children Gillian, Melissa and Sean Gregory. Happy birthday Cyp. The photos are by the chronicler of our times Peter Ramsay.
GILBERT MORRIS WRITES
Gilbert N. M. O. Morris writes from the Turks and Caicos Islands with his unique perspective on the financial services sector and its importance to the world financial system. The once called offshore sector has been much reviled in the developed countries as centres for the evasion of taxes from the developed countries. He argues that to the contrary, they are important to world finance and capital accumulation.
Forrester Carroll writes this week about the FM’s conclave held on Saturday 7th July. He says that they did not need a conclave to know why they lost. He says they still show signs of not understanding how badly they were out of touch with the Bahamian people. He tells them that there was no need to summon former Ingraham general Kelly Burrows. In his words: Kelly gone:
The FNM held a one-day conclave on Saturday 7th July (they say) to determine, discuss and conclude on a set of reasons why they lost, so badly, in the recent general elections; are these guys serious; are they for real? Any third grade, third rate student could tell them why they lost; they didn’t need a conclave (for God’s sake) to determine that, I’ve been telling them, all along (for five years), that they were out of touch with suffering Bahamians and that they would lose. As well, they were warned, that their policies were the main contributing factor accounting for the rapid deteriorating and worsening living conditions of the ordinary Bahamian household. It couldn’t have been that so-called astute politicians (as they all claim they are) could not have seen the handwriting on the wall? “Mene; Mene; Tekel Parsin;” you were weighted in the balances and found wanting;” so God warned that wicked king Belshazzar, by the sudden appearing of his fingers writing on the wall (Daniel Chapter 5). The writing was on the wall, for the FNM, for at least three and a half years prior (my friends) but they were too blind, puffed up and stubborn to see the political precipice in front of them; pride goeth before a fall and (just like King Belshazzar) they couldn’t see straight. Bahamians, for months and months, were telling you guys that things were tough; instead of assessing and addressing the people’s needs you argued with them telling them that things were not tough but that they only thought things were tough. You knew the situation better than us who actually lived through the tough times (while the few of you fed sumptuously on our tax dollars) and you tried to convince us that we were only exaggerating. Well the Bahamian people simply had enough of your showboating and showed you better than they could tell you on that fateful Election Day; that’s why you are out on your heads and there is nothing you guys can do, any time soon, to redeem your once political standing.
The Punch newspaper in its “The Punch says” section was trying to help you guys out, in a subsequent (to your conclave) Edition but their efforts failed as well; too much misery and pain, experienced by too many poor Bahamians, went down during those fateful five years of FNM governance-2007-2012. The Punch says that the FNM’s main focus, during its one-day get together, was to rally the troops by creating, for the attendees, the false notion that somehow the PLP government could fall by 2015; the reason put forth, by the FNM’s “walking on thin ice,” “unsettled,” “confidence lacking” leader is (as he told them) because of infighting between the old and new PLPs. Charles Maynard, and dumb leader Dr. Minnis, shouldn’t permit such garbage to come forth from their mouths. Charles seemed to have been so desperate, for some kind of positive message for the politically naïve group, that he went on in the process to lambast the character of the Hon. Bradley Roberts for which Mr. Roberts threatened to sue him.
Minnis, on the other hand (as the Punch says), seemed to feel that this anticipated false crisis (to occur in the PLP) which he expects to develop into an all out war, by the year 2015, will be the catalyst to topple the PLP and that (he told his audience) the FNM must of necessity be battle ready to enable them to sweep the PLP from power. I cannot believe that this once vibrant political party would find itself in this precarious decaying position where it is settling for a leadership team which can only be described as dumb (Charles), dumber (Loretta) and dumbest (Dr. Minnis); had any more nightmares lately Dr. Minnis Sir? Mr. Leader of the FNM Sir?
They say a win in North Abaco, when the by-elections take place, would put them on a roll for success in regaining the Government. Why in the hell don’t you guys just settle down, compose yourselves and get on with being a responsible opposition? There is no more governing for “yinner” guys anytime soon so get over your licks and stop your winning. By the way, as I advised before, save that money (you intend to spend on the by-election) to pay down on the huge debt your party incurred during the general elections; the PLP will win North Abaco and win it big time. I personally have reports of Generals deserting the FNM camp already; they are saying (and logically so) that it is no use them pretending; that the FNM will not win the seat and even if they do win they would still be in opposition and the PLP would still be the government by a wide margin of seats. They are saying what’s the point North Abaco sending an FNM representative back to parliament; it will do them no good so Charles and Minnis, you guys have a steep up-hill battle convincing your supporters to stay the course and that’s for sure. Besides, these North Abaco folk are not stupid; they know that whether the PLP win or loses it will remain the government and Ingraham (of all people) will not be able to help them. The generals are saying that they must be in a position to earn a living and sticking around with the opposition FNM is no place to be in a scenario like this (i.e. 29 PLP seats to 9 FNM seats). Grown-ups shouldn’t display such stupidity. Minnis told his conclave that the PLP won the elections by default; what the hell does that mean, Hubert Minnis? Why are you so stupid? “Default,” as I was taught it’s meaning, means when there’s an official contest and just one entity or individual shows up for the contest; that party or individual wins by “default” but, as I recall, two other political parties and a number of Independents showed up to contest all the 38 seats. Actually more than 120 candidates nominated so stop talking cow dung. Are you forgetting (Dr. Minnis) that it was your dictator bastard leader and Prime Minister who re-drew the boundary lines in the entire country, eliminating three constituencies in the process, in a desperate effort to favor the FNM winning? Not only that but have you forgotten as well that he moved incumbent cabinet ministers around from their constituencies to others in a further effort to stack the political fortunes in the FNM’s favor? Was all those efforts made to better the position of the PLP or your FNM? At the end of the day though you lost (you bastards) and now you come talking nonsense about winning by default? So why did you let the opposition PLP win 29 of 38 seats by default? If the DNA was such a factor (as you said they were) in the FNM losing why didn’t you make a deal with the DNA before the elections? Your dictator leader said he didn’t need a damn soul; that he could win all by himself so don’t come now crying over spilled milk. You got your asses kicked and that’s the bottom line. I am told that these FNMs have taken this loss so badly that many of them have opted for “All night prayer meetings” to petition God for the early collapse of the PLP government but the Devil is a liar.
North Abaco will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, for the new FNM leader. When Minnis loses that seat it will be “Delia wrote the note” as we say it in Long Island. Minnis would be wise then to pack his bags for the long journey into his early political retirement because the vultures, in his party, are ready to pounce on him and pick his bones clean. I must credit Minnis (though) with having some testicles; he claims (for the sake of the conclave) that he will win North Abaco by a wider margin than Ingraham did and we will wait to see? I know that you, (Hubert Minnis) as leader, have a bounden duty to speak encouraging words for your followers but don’t you think that saying you will win North Abaco by a wider margin, than Ingraham, was being quite ridiculous? In North Abaco the Negros are already deserting that corral and I was given that bit of information, by a credible FNM general, source whose name will remain my secret.
“So the FNM aims to be battle ready when the people turn on the PLP and compel Christie to call an early election are they? This is why the FNM claimed they held a secret retreat at Breezes Hotel on Cable Beach several Saturdays ago;” claimed the Punch in support of Minnis’ far out, “Alice in wonder land,” assertions. Look guys the elections have only been held two months ago; you have five years to make ready for the next contest; give it time, wake up out of your slumbering and focus on strategies, you can employ, to effectively oppose the PLP. There is too much opposition against you right now; what you guys did to the Bahamian people, in the last five years, is still very fresh in their minds and they are not listening to you right now. As a matter of fact Kelly Burrows who was Ingraham’s most trusted general in Freeport wrote a letter to the press recently admonishing you spar losers to get over it. I am told that that letter resulted in Mr. Burrows being summoned into to Nassau for consultations. I know that FNM’s chairman sent his ticket and pleaded for him to attend the special called meeting. Guess what guys; you are wasting your time, Kelly Burrows gone. The Bahamian people have spoken and you have five years, at the very least, in the wilderness. Your dreams of an early election and the PLP government being derailed, precipitating an early election, is rather a futile and early prediction to make wouldn’t you say?
In his comments about the PLPs board appointments Charles Maynard, in his efforts to try and get some traction and score some political points, actually ended up making himself look like a jackass. Firstly he said the PLP was late in naming its boards and everything else; well the PLP’s chairman responded, debunking the chairman’s claim by showing that while the PLP took 62 days to put in place all of its ministers and board members etc. the FNM took 67 days. Charlie accused the PLP, as well, of appointing older persons instead of new younger faces, to chair the Boards; well Mr. Bradley Roberts wasted no time in reminding the FNM’s chairman, as well, that the FNM’s picks to chair their boards were persons, in many cases, far older than the PLP’s. Mr. Edison Key, the member for South and Central Abaco, for instance. And then Charles allegedly libeled the Hon. Bradley Roberts by inferring that he was allegedly involved in some shady deals while he was chairman of the water & sewage Corp during Christie’s 2002-2007 Administration. He accused the Rt. Hon. Perry Christie of making an unwise decision when he re-appointed Mr. Roberts to chair the said Water & Sewerage Corporation Board. Well that caused the former minister to foam at the mouth and he demanded that the FNM chairman retract the allegation and publicly apologize or face a lawsuit for defamation of character. You FNM guys had better be careful not to allow your disappointing loss and your anxiousness to return to the cookie jar to run you up on breaks. Oswald Brown opined, in a recent commentary appearing on BP, that this crew (the FNM) has lost the human side of politics and that they are now too pre-occupied with criticizing every little thing the PLP does and or doesn’t do. I certainly didn’t care two hoots whether they sent a representative to Aunt Trixie Hanna’s funeral or not but she being the mother of the country’s first lady and the mother-in-law of the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister (besides I was told that Aunt Trixie used to trim Ingraham’s hair for free) it was the RIGHT thing for them to have done politically.
Thank you Forrester J Carroll J.P Freeport, Grand Bahama July 2012.
On Boards and Committees ( A Response) We present this anonymous commentary sent to our website in reply to last week’s editorial on the impatience of PLPs about the appointment to boards and committees.
I have read the leader in Bahamas Uncensored in response to the storm of criticism that has been heaped on the Government and it has caused me to reflect on what all of this means and I offer the following observations:
The first is that it is an immutable maxim of politics that support = payback. In the case of the PLP victory, just about every single campaign worker and party apparatchik, both nationally and at the grassroots level, is of the view that they had a vested contribution to the election victory, even if it only meant attending Rallies and doing some door to door campaign or even less. These supporters appreciate that while not everyone can sit in the Cabinet, the House of Assembly or the Senate they feel as if there should be some immediate gratification and some recognition of what they had done. Very few care about what these Boards and Committees will or should do but the thing is to be recognized;
Secondly, it is unfortunate that some of the same names keep showing up on these Boards and Committees and the solution for a future Government might well be, if you had previously served there should be no continuum. Serving on Boards and committees should not be in perpetuity;
Thirdly, the clamor reflects that we now have a very politically enlightened electorate, bright, sharp, and attuned to issues and who feel that they can make a contribution to the polity and governance of the State if only through a "Quango".
Lastly, and this is very critical in terms of what we do about the nature of governance, it is clear that we now have only a few limited avenues for public service in its broadest sense. We have a national level of government but we do not have an effective second and third tier of Government in place, especially in New Providence where the hue and cry is perhaps the loudest. It would seem to make sense that we quickly put in place a second and third tier levels of Government with functions and powers which could very well harness this political and intellectual energy represented by so many thousands of party supporters (imagine how important or prestigious it would be to be appointed to the Town Council for Montagu or Southern Shores, etc or on the Zoning Board for Centreville or Grants Town, etc)? We must take the steps to do something different, otherwise, the frustration will continue to mount and Boards and Committees will come to represent a soft edge where a lot of support and enthusiasm will dissipate when it is needed the next time around.
Regards,
Kelly Burrows Writes The Editor From Freeport Kelly Burrows tells the FNM to get a life. The fellows are going to fire him if he’s not careful:
Dear Editor.
The election’s is over! criticizing just to criticize, or make headlines seems to be the order of the day for the Chairman of the F N M. During the campaign he labeled himself the lie detector, now, he hasbecome the official analysis negatively, on everything the P L P does, I’m no defender of the P L P. I’m just tired of the unnecessary daily, uncalled for condemnation, when there are so much more pressing issues that can be dealt with.
Mr. Chairman, accept the fact that the F N M, was kicked out of office by a landslide, by a margin of 29 seats to 9, andthe P L P, were given a clear mandate by the Bahamian people to govern, albeit not the popular votes, and perhaps, on their way in picking up another in North Abaco.
The energy that you are using in your continued denigration, you should channel some of that energy in retainingthe North Abaco seat.
The people have spoken, (The voice of the people is the voice of God) get over it, and move on. Give the new Government a chance, the people have spoken, you are wearing yourself out Mr. Chairman, are you prepared to criticize on everything for five years?
Kelly D. Burrows Freeport Grand Bahama. P.O. Box F42977 Telephone 373 7126
IN PASSING
Mark Bethel Buried
Popular singing pastor Mark Bethel of Bahamas Faith Mission was buried on Saturday 21st July following a service at the Faith Mission auditorium in New Providence. Prime Minister Perry Christie, his Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell and his Attorney General Allyson Gibson attended the funeral. Pastor Myles Munroe preached the sermon.
Mitchell To Washington D.C Fred Mitchell, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, is to travel to Washington D.C., capital of the United States and headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS) to give the formal response of the government to the report of the OAS on the elections held in The Bahamas on 7th May. The response is expected on 24th July.
Should Hubert Be Allowed To Speak?
Hubert Ingraham told the press at his press conference to announce his so called retirement on Thursday 19th July that he intended to come to the House of Assembly on 25th July and to make a Member’s statement. The PLP should not permit him to be heard. The House should not allow a member who thumbs his nose at the institution to have a word to say in it. This is the same man, who refuses to sit and listen to others as they speak in the House. Why should the PLP allow its members to be bombarded with the foolishness and the insults?
The Lives Of The Dispirited
Each week as the offices of PLP MPs open, there are people stacked up from early in the morning until the last nail knocks. People are there seeking to get a government job. If everyone were accommodated with a government job, the government would be bankrupt if it is not already. Many are totally self-absorbed. Some are working but have no feel for the crisis in the country except their reality and discomfort. They claim not to know that there are simply no jobs to be found and that the new government is simply trying to get this economy going. All they can see is what they want and they want it now. Interesting, the life of the self-absorbed and the dispirited. It’s all about me, me and me. We don’t envy these PLP MPs.
PLP Voices On The Web Fall Silent?
We notice that since the general election is over, several of the prominent voices on Facebook that defend the PLP have gone silent. Why is that? Now more than ever, the voices are needed. The government is eight weeks old, surely this is no time to lose heart.
What Was The Protocol Officer Doing There?
Chris Gibson is a protocol officer with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As such he is under the general and specific direction of the Chief of Protocol and the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry. His duties do not include protocol officiating for the former Prime Minister of the country at his political press conference. The question then is: what was he doing at the press conference for the former Prime Minister on Thursday 19th July. Perhaps he was sending a message to his employers. Perhaps, they need to send one back to him. The photo is by Peter Ramsay.
Storm About Firing Coralee Adderley..
There is a storm of controversy in the public domain about the dismissal of an employee of the Public Hospitals Authority called Coralee Adderley. The dismissal was attacked by Leader of the Opposition Hubert Minnis who said the dismissal was an act of political victimization by the PLP. Interesting choice of words. He must know something that has not yet otherwise been disclosed. Presumably he meant political victimization and since he was jumping to her defence that means that she must have been FNM. Then the other side started to surface. The Minister of Health Perry Gomez said that there was a difference between qualifications and ability. You might have one but not the other. That was interesting. Then the web press site bahamaspress.com repeated a story that she had been insulting to the Minister of Health in his former life as an employee of the PHA. One story said that while seeking to secure his retirement from office as a consultant to the Ministry, she reportedly told the then Dr. Gomez to get out of the office and take his “shit” with him and if he couldn’t she would do it for him. The former Prime Minister at his press conference said how he had to save Dr Gomez twice from being attacked. That was interesting. Well the PHA chief says she will be compensated for the dismissal. We think it’s probably wise to simply pay out the contract and avoid a protracted fight over this. The more general point is: there is a new sheriff in town so change is gonna come.
BIS And Its Lack Of Capacity
It is clear that the PLP’s PR machinery for the government and for the party is in need of yet another overhaul. The question is does the Bahamas Information Services serve the purpose for which it was formed?. It simply acts like a lumbering giant, too slow to react and not dynamic enough to meet the exigencies of a modern government. If something is not done, then the foes will devour us. Case in point, the ability of the information services to defend the government when the former Prime Minister unleashed a set of lies, innuendoes and half truths on the government during his press conference on 19th July. The web was silent. The airwaves were silent. It was left to the talk show hosts to defend the government. Something has to be wrong with all of that.
Debate Over ZNS Coverage Of The Olympics
ZNS, the publicly owned station, has reportedly obtained the exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympic Games when they begin next week. That’s fine except what they mean by exclusive is that Bahamian consumers will not be able to watch NBC or the BBC or CBC on their Cable Channels during their broadcasts. They have got to be kidding. ZNS is hopeless. They are bad technically. They don’t broadcast in HD. How in the name of heaven would they satisfy the appetite for the games The Bahamas? They will not be able to do so. The government should not get itself into having to defend this. We have said often in this space, there is no need for a publicly owned station in this country. It is a waste of public funds. The whole thing needs to be dissolved and done away with. But the business of the Olympic Games is just unwise politically and should be corrected forthwith.
Dr. Minnis Didn’t Get Hubert’s Memo
Poor Dr. Hubert Minnis, the hapless Leader of the Opposition, who is leading a divided party the FNM. He turned up to the press conference to be the sideshow for Hubert Ingraham at his much touted resignation press conference on 19th July. Bad enough he was looking like a lackey but it appears that he did not get the memo about dress for the occasion. Mr. Ingraham and all his boys came in a suit. Dr. Minnis came in a red FNM T shirt, wrong in any case for the formality of a press conference in the House of Assembly. But just goes to show, you can’t teach some people and some people have it and some don’t have it. Some don’t get it. The picture by Peter Ramsay tells more than a thousand words. The photo is by Peter Ramsay.
Loftus Roker In Hospital
The Bahamaspress website reports that A. Loftus Roker, the former Minister of National Security, is in a Florida hospital for surgery. No word on when or what his condition is.
Zane celebrates his third birthday
Dad is one of the country's best lawyers and mom is at home making sure all is well. A happy home for a young boy and his sisters. Zane Rugby,the only son and last child of Raynard and Alexandra Rigby celebrated his third birthday with family and friends. A fine time was had by all. The moment was captured by Peter Ramsay.
An Impossible Task
Try asking a Prime Minister seeking to fill overseas posts, and trying to keep his party's platform promise to have a mix of political appointees and professional diplomats. Tough job. Hundreds of people are lobbying to get 10 jobs. That will be quite a hat trick.
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BYE BYE HAPPINESS. HELLO EMPTINESS. I THINK I’M GONNA DIE. That seemed to be the apt expression to describe Hubert Ingraham as the slunk out of the House, described by Minster of Housing as a cowardly act, on Wednesday 25th July. The former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham had held a press conference the week before last in which he had promised to come to the House one last time to bid us farewell. There is a point on the agenda for doing so. The Speaker ruled that since he was not resigning immediately but on the 31st of August, then he should wait for that point on the agenda as opposed to taking precedence had his resignation been immediate. Mr. Ingraham got vex, picked up his papers and with that left the House. Following him down the stairs were some of his former Ministers who had been prepped to come and see the last farewell. We’re sad to say, he is on his way though. He won’t back for many a day. His heart is down. His head is turning around, he had leave all the power in Nassau Town. Our photo of the week is that of the day of the ignominious departure of our former Prime Minister from the House of Assembly as captured by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services.
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
IT’S INGRAHAM’S FAULT
Erma Williams is an FNM, true and true, died in the wool FNM. That is not to be confused with lack of decency though. She is a decent woman. The kind that any party would want to have in their rank and file, in fact that you have to have if your party is going to survive. No matter what happens, good or bad, she is with you. You can count on her. As she left the House of Assembly on Wednesday 25th July, she was not happy. She said so. She said that she was very disappointed in the Speaker of the House Kendal Major because he had not allowed the former Prime Minister to speak at the top of the agenda.
Her answer to the criticism that the former Prime Minister did not allow former Deputy Prime Minister Cynthia Pratt to say farewell and left her crying on the steps of the Assembly prior to the elections was that he was a Prime Minister and you cannot compare Mother Pratt’s position to his.
What was all the more egregiously wrong for her was that she remembered Kendal Major being around her home as a little boy.
Such is the turn of politics in a small country. It brings out the best in us and sometimes the worst in us. But all of this was totally unnecessary, the hurt feelings, the dismay, the deflation, the rancor, the bitter words, the rulings by the Speaker, all of this was brought on by the conduct of one man Hubert Ingraham. This was a man who simply could not and cannot accept that in this country there is an order which he cannot control, which he does not control and which he should not want to control. In the result, he leaves in the bitter fashion that played out on the stage last week. He left his supporters lashing out at the PLP, when the reality is they should be lashing out at him. He was the author of his own destruction and he was the finisher of his own fate. The fault is in himself and not in the stars. It was not the Speaker’s fault but Mr. Ingraham’s fault.
Krissy Love is another type of FNM ideologue. She is a bitter woman. She too gives no quarter. She now has a radio programme and she specializes in issuing forth a particular kind of bile and anger directed at the PLP. She is irrational to the point of being a caricature. She is so irrational that she has lost her ability to know when it is simply time to pull back and be measured in her language and in her actions, lest her show lose its credibility. In this she has become a kind of Rush Limbaugh of The Bahamas, bile for the sake of bile. It cannot be that there is nothing that the PLP can do. It comes off that she is the propaganda arm of the FNM and that too was unleashed in bitter fashion against the PLP on her show and elsewhere.
And so as the propaganda arm of the FNM swung into action, she was a part of it. Their story is the one Mr. Ingraham told them to say. It is that the Speaker somehow breached an agreement to allow him to speak at the top of the agenda on 25th July his supposed last day in the House. The Speaker denies that there was any such agreement and says that in any event he could not change the rules without the consent of the House.
Therein lies the point. Mr. Ingraham could have solved this whole problem had he simply spoken to the Prime Minister or the Leader of Government business and arranged the farewell in a manner with the consent of the House. But no with Mr. Ingraham it has always got to be controversy and argument and my way or the highway.
So, “you pays ya penny and ya takes ya choice”.
The propaganda line of the FNM is that somehow the Speaker was controlled by Perry Christie. Mr. Christie denies it. There is no evidence of it.
Their line continues that Mr. Ingraham was denied what he (Mr. Ingraham) did for Sir Lynden Pindling. What most people remember is his attack on Sir Lynden in the man’s face on the last day that he sat in Parliament and his writing on the file at the Cabinet Office not to pay Sir Lynden his pension until the resignation was in hand. It was an unlawful act, since the man was entitled to his pension.
So here is where we are. On 25th July, Hubert Ingraham took his followers out of the House one last time or so he says. You cannot believe a word he says in this regard. This time the Parliamentary group of FNMs went nowhere. They stayed in the House. Left to follow him down the stairs were Tommy Turnquest, defeated MP, Italia Johnson, defeated MP, Charles Maynard, defeated MP, Earl Deveaux, retired MP. In other words those who followed him down the stairs were a bunch of losers. Left in the wake of that silliness however were the ordinary supporters who lost the one last moment in time to see a former Prime Minister, one of only three in the history of the country, make a decent and orderly exit. They were left deflated and depressed and we feel really sorry that this has happened but only Hubert Ingraham is to blame for it.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 28th July 2012 up to midnight. 127,273
Number of hits for the month of July up to Saturday 28th July 2012 up to midnight: 471,980
Number of hits for the year 2012 up to Saturday 28th July 2012 up to midnight: 4,609,487
This cartoon by Stan Burnside of the Nassau Guardian appeared on 26th July. It harks back to the report that when he was Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham shut the House down without allowing Cynthia Pratt, the former Deputy Prime Minister to say good bye to her constituents. The report was that she sat on the steps of the House and cried.
CHRISTIE SPEAKS AT CANTO
Last week as we were going to upload, the Prime Minister Perry Christie was the featured speaker at the CANTO gathering in Miami of all the regional telephone companies. The gathering heard that the Prime Minister continues to work on the issue of regaining the majority shares of BTC, sold at a fire sale price by the previous administration to the Cable and Wireless company of Great Britain. Cable and Wireless has got to be the worst telephone company in the world. Since it has taken over the service in The Bahamas, the service has deteriorated and gone from bad to worse. It is interesting the public relations campaign that is being waged none too subtly in the press by Cable and Wireless to derail the repurchase of the shares. First, there was the salvo out of London that taking back the majority shares would adversely affect the country's reputation in the international community. That is hogwash since in recent times it has been done in Belize and in Zambia without any adverse consequences. Secondly, The Tribune ran a poll which they said showed that 84 per cent of the people in the poll support the privatization of BTC, the phone company. Only thing is they were not asked whether they agreed with Cable and Wireless owning the company. Then you have these smarmy executives from Cable and Wireless singing sweet nothings to the press and the Bahamian people about how they are not going to get into a confrontation with the government but will instead work with the government. That they are concentrating on cutting costs and increasing shareholder value. The President of the company Geoffrey Huston said that the dividend payment to the government had doubled over the last year. What we found interesting though was the comment of the overall boss from London Tony Rice, quoted in The Tribune that while he acknowledged that Mr. Christie had raised the issue of taking back the majority shares, that he was not talking about taking back management and control. Please let us make this clear Cable and Wireless must become a minority party and they must go from the management of BTC. They keep talking about profits but nothing about the bad service they give: the collapse of the phone system all together in early summer of this year, unprecedented and today you have to try three and four time before you can get call through on the system. It is simply lousy. It is a bad company for The Bahamas and the quicker we get rid of them the better. Please!
INGRAHAM RESIGNS- HIS STATEMENT Hubert Ingraham went public the week before last to say that he would resign as of 31st August. We pointed out last week that the former Prime Minister’s word could not be trusted. As it turns out, the Speaker of the House Kendal Major had the same idea. He called the threat to resign, the delivery of the letter which said that the resignation would become effective on 31st August, a promissory note. With that he ruled in the House on Wednesday 25th July that the former Prime Minister had to wait until item J on the agenda of the House, leave to resign seat, in order to give his farewell address. Mr. Ingraham took up his georgie bundle and left the House. Too bad, too sad. That is one of his favourite expressions when he dismissed people who were offended by his political decisions. He promised the press that he would not come back to the House. He said that Perry Christie was to blame for not allowing him to speak, having orchestrated the whole thing. The Guardian reported on Friday 27th July that Perry Christie’s response to that was that was nonsense. With that Mr. Ingraham distributed his farewell speech that was never delivered to the press. It was an exercise in total self-absorption. What “we” did. He spoke in the Royal “we”. Ah my. At the end, the best he could do was to express regret if some of his actions were misunderstood. This is a totally lost man. He just doesn’t get it. Or maybe he does, because he did tell The Tribune on the day he left the House as he was getting in his car, that the reality was the PLP had won and he had lost and the PLP was in control of the agenda. He was also quoted in The Tribune as saying that he and the Speaker had agreed that he would speak at the point on the agenda of Leave to Resign Seat. So one asks oneself in the backdrop of all of the hullabaloo about whether or not Mr. Ingraham was treated fairly or not by the PLP on this matter, and given what he himself said to The Tribune, what the heck is he complaining about? You may click here for his full farewell statement.
SPOUSAL PERMITS AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Fred Mitchell MP who is also the Minister for Immigration announced in the House of Assembly on Wednesday 25th July that there will be an amendment to the Immigration Act to provide for the grant of spousal permits for an unlimited period for so long as the marriage between a Bahamian and a non Bahamian subsists. This will replace the present limited period of five years. Mr. Mitchell also announced that the government will move to amend the constitution to remove all discriminatory provisions against women in the constitution. This will mean that a referendum will have to be put to the country to amend the articles on citizenship so that women can pass their Bahamian citizenship on to their children and give the male spouses of Bahamian women the right to apply for Bahamian citizenship. It will also amend Article 26 of the constitution to add gender as part of the definition of discrimination in the constitution. You may click here for the full address.
The photo of Mr. Mitchell speaking in the House is by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services.The video of the video of the announcement was captured by C. Allen Johnson.
MITCHELL SPEAKS TO BDO PARTNERS
Fred Mitchell MP for Fox Hill and the Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke to the meeting of the regional partners of BDO, the world’s fifth largest accounting firm. The firm is headed by Clifford Culmer here in Nassau and his son Myles. The regional partners gathered for their meetings at Atlantis in the Zeus Boardroom and Mr. Mitchell spoke to them at lunch time about the need for the accountants in the region to tell the story of the financial services sector in the region and to help debunk the myth that the financial services sector hurts the developed countries. He said that the matter was impatient of debate; it was clear that the money that came to the financial services sector in the region ended right back in the developed countries. You may click here for the full address by Mr. Mitchell.
The photo by Derek Smith of the Bahamas Information Services shows Mr. Mitchell addressing the group on Monday 23rd July with Mr. Culmer at the table with other partners looking on.
MITCHELL EXPLAINS THE PLP'S RESPONSE TO INGRAHAM
The video below is captured by C. Allen Johnson
MR. INGRAHAM CROSS THE ROAD PLEASE
This week an FNM close to the new leadership of the party sat at coffee in Wendy’s and spoke candidly about the departure of Mr. Ingraham. He said that Mr. Ingraham’s press conference (Thursday, July 19th, 2012) did not go as planned. He said Ingraham said too much, and spoke too long. We had to let Mr. Ingraham speak because that’s the price we had to pay for peace. We just want him to cross the road and be gone. This time there will be no back tracking like he did with Tommy. It is important that the party makes it through the Abaco by-election intact. It will be good if we win but it is more important that we get through the process in one piece without the party splintering. Once the Abaco process is complete, you will see the real leader in Dr. Hubert Minnis. But, for now, we have to let Ingraham have his way.
Mr. Ingraham has become the Uncle “Bill” of the party he once led. Every family has an Uncle Bill. He is the family member that you have to invite to family functions and hope he does not come. Where ever Uncle Bill goes trouble soon follows. Uncle Bill always misbehaves. At times, Uncle Bill is invited at the last minute with the hope that he is unable to make arrangements, but in the end, he shows up nonetheless. Mr. Ingraham has become the Uncle Bill of his party. His departure on Wednesday past has shown all Bahamians that he has not come to terms with the magnitude of the May 7th, defeat. And so his exit was not a memorable one.
The PLP, for their part, through Ministers Fred Mitchell, Shane Gibson, and Damien Gomez gave Ingraham and the FNM a lesson on how MPs ought to deport themselves. In trying circumstance, they gave a mature and measured response for the occasion to the man they had crossed swords with on more than one occasion. They all, did themselves proud; and, by extension, the PLP. In essence, they showed that Ingraham was a mere mortal with clay feet.
“Wretched man that I am who shall deliver men.” Romans7:24
Stalwart B
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Forrester Carroll writes this week from Freeport on what he claims was a concerted and coordinated attack by Zhivargo Laing, the former Minister of State for Finance and the former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham on the Commissioner of Police. He warns the Commissioner to watch his back because there are some in his department who do not support him and were promised this job by the former administration.
Zhivargo Laing must not have gotten Dr. Minnis’ Memo-he must not have seen where the new FNM’s leader imposed a gag order on all (including him) from speaking with the press on any matter that’s in the purview of the FNM to address. Laing took it upon himself to dress down the COP for touting Urban Renewal 2.0 as a worthy and excellent crime fighting initiative; that the Urban Renewal 2.0 program is a strategy whose time has come. Laing’s opinion is that the COP made a very partisan political statement; that he should not have said what he said; that he was promoting the PLP’s agenda and as such was very unwise to have involved himself in the partisan politically game. How much more STUPID can this silly boy become? I am told that Hubert Ingraham as well, instead of carrying his behind off the political scene with some dignity intact, was yesterday in the Opposition room at the House of Assembly raising the same issue to agree with the youthful Senator. To me it certainly looked as though the two had a pre-arranged plan to attack the COP in this manner and to bring the top COP into public ridicule. I am obliged to ask the FNM’s leader and deputy leader if they sanctioned this attack on the COP and if they did, why didn’t Minnis carry the ball on that one? Neither of the two screwballs (Ingraham nor Laing) have any party status so why were they allowed to speak pre-empting the newly elected leader, his deputy and the chairman? Where are you both in all of this? The way it supposed to work is that if the party agrees that an objection to a matter has legs and political value the leader or the party’s chairman usually carries the ball not parliamentarians or other supporters. My advice to you Dr. Minnis; get your party under control before the only leadership qualities you are left with is” Mr. Leader” in name only. It can’t be Dr. Minnis that you are going to allow these two washed-up failures to undermine your authority in the party, do you? If you do then it’s all over for you jack.
I have good reason (s) to suspect that two very senior police officers are in cahoots with Zhivargo and Hubert Ingraham to undermine the COP’s independence and authority and to make him look like a PLP government pawn. Mind you the two, whom I have my suspicions about, are the same two who were promised promotions after the general elections if the FNM had won. These two stooges of Ingraham’s, (who were used by both Ingraham and Turnquest to undermine the COP when the FNM was in power by keeping them abreast of everything the COP did or didn’t do) were assured by Hubert Ingraham that they would be promoted to COP and Deputy COP. The two suckers are still undermining Commissioner Greenslade and unless he gets rid of them they will piss all over him every chance they get. For obvious reasons I will not name them but I know curiosity is killing the cat. One was slated to become COP replacing Greenslade and another was to be promoted to Deputy COP; God intervened, however, and messed up their plans. Hundreds more civil servants were going to be axed as well. Don’t be fooled, you two men, we know who you are and our eyes are constantly plastered on you at all times. We have our operatives on the force as well and some of those same officers who were victimized by you two Ingraham suck eggs because they told you they were PLP supporters and didn’t give a damn if you victimized them or not? Look over your shoulders fellows; they are walking right behind you. The PLP’s programs will not be derailed by a bunch of two-bit selfish thugs like the both of you.
The COP told the press that Christie’s Urban Renewal Program 2.0 was indeed working; that the recent statistics are already indicating a trend downwards, in the commission of crime; that since the short period the program was in effect crime, all around, has declined by six (6) per cent; Laing disputed the COP’s claims and asked him to show how Urban Renewal was the factor at work here. Working based on what, he asked the COP? Working doing what? Working to push down trees? Working to push down houses? Working to remove derelict vehicles? Working to clear down bushes? Impertinent fellow isn’t he? Read the man’s lips, Zhivargo Laing, crime is down and going down further and the COP attributes the good report to the implementation of Christie’s Urban Renewal 2.0 program. I know you suckers can’t stand the PLP’s program being a success, after your own Administration’s numerous attempts at addressing this chronic problem failed; a problem, I might add, for which the FNM Administration should take total responsibility. The FNM’s lack of vision and foresight caused many families to be in mourning today due to the untimely, unnecessary and avoidable deaths of many of their loved ones.
After watching the news cast today (19th July) on JCN 14, where Ingraham picked up the chant and continued where Zhivargo left off attacking the COP, it brought me to the conclusion that Laing’s initial attack, on the COP a day or two before, was a planned plot by the two of them (he and Hubert) with the help of the two traitor-informer insiders I spoke about earlier. I submit that Laing was told to initiate the attack, on Commissioner Greenslade, with the promise by Ingraham that he would come behind and finish him (COP) off. The plan (if designed to gain political mileage for the FNM) backfired (though) and big time. The whole country seemed to have viewed Ingraham’s press appearance negatively and branded his deportment and comments as those of a bitter loser. Ninety-nine per cent of the calls to the talk shows tallied overwhelming demand that Ingraham demit from the political scene, sooner than later, before he damages any further Dr. Minnis’ future role as captain of that sunken ship. What was worthy of note, in all of this, was the fact that Loretta Butler-Turner and some others (who probably should have been there) were not present for the washed-up dictator’s charade. The whole affair certainly didn’t make the new leader (Dr. Minnis) look very good; he looked like an idiot sitting next to Hubert in his shadow where he will always be as long as he maintains those close political ties to the damn washed-up dictator. Cut that donkey loose, Dr. Minnis, if you are to establish your own political manhood at the helm of the FNM. As a side note, while the damn dictator was continuing the attack on our fine COP, he made reference to the Coralie Adderley/Minister Dr. Perry Gomez’s affair and accused the situation as being victimization; can this animal be serious? Who the hell Ingraham thinks he is? Isn’t this the same big eyes, big nose Abaco Dragon who victimized, right left and center, while he was in office, cancelling valid contracts which resulted in Bahamian taxpayers having to pay huge amounts in court-ordered penalty settlements? Isn’t this the same Jackass who terminated abruptly so many civil servants’ careers when he singlehandedly victimized so many hundreds of them during his tenure? Isn’t this the same piss-head who dismissed every single Urban Renewal employee and replaced them with FNM supporters when he came to office in 2007? Yes, indeed; this is the same CULPRIT; we all should regard all of what he says as garbage and political sour grapes; he cares for no one but his own lousy backside. His attitude wasn’t that of someone who was going off the political scene but one who seems prepared, at some future point, to do to Dr. Minnis what he did to worthless Tommy Turnquest-undermine his leadership and take it from him.
Laing made light of the activities of Urban Renewal 2.0 i.e. the cutting down of trees; the removing of derelict vehicles; pushing down of houses and the clearing of vacant properties within certain hot spot areas in the country, especially in Nassau and Freeport. He did so because his and his opposition party’s objective is for the PLP to fail. They are actually rooting for crime to increase; the economy to get worse; Bahamians to see tougher times and for the country to become a failed state. For this the two of them should be tied to a whipping post, naked from their ass down and whipped with the cat-o-nine tail or worse still with the cow things. They are so bitter over their loss that I feel strongly (and I have good reason for suggesting so) that they are having all night prayer meetings with one request to whomever (not God the Father for sure) they are praying, that the PLP government fails and fails miserably. This is their earnest prayer to that Supreme Being, whoever he or she may be; that Supreme Being is certainly not my Father God in Heaven. The sovereign God doesn’t listen to, neither does He respond to, the prayers of Devils. Ingraham’s conduct, on the occasion of his resignation, was nothing short of disgraceful and he should not be accorded the common courtesies normally afforded retiring heads of states; give him what he rightfully deserves-a good kick in his rear end.
Minister Bell took Ingraham to task for his callous and reckless remarks concerning the police. In addition to calling him shameful for what he said about the COP, Bell branded his (Ingraham’s) “you have a right to shoot when you are threatened; you don’t have a right to Willy nilly go and shoot somebody” statement as reckless and unfortunate for a former prime minister. In effect, by this statement, Ingraham was suggesting that the police were guilty of just shooting down innocent persons without provocation and he knows his statements to be volatile nonsense. Even in this he was trying to use the police’s actions to foster a bad relationship between the police and the public, something they have been trying to build up for years. In addition, by saying what he said, his objective was to cause the families of the unfortunate victims to become angry with the police, thus trying to get some support from them for the FNM. The man is a cold, callous, calculated, conniving snake of a bastard.
This miserable duo (Ingraham and Laing) are working in cahoots, I can tell you, with those two very senior members, on the police force, mentioned earlier; these two traitors, were promised that if the FNM won the elections they would be promoted to COP and Deputy COP respectively. They are traitors and the COP should watch carefully his back. They are backstabbers, of the first order, and the COP should deal with the damn traitors in the way traitors should be dealt with and he should do so post haste without delay. I saw comments by one of them in the newspapers recently where he was pretending to sing the praises of Urban Renewal 2.0; don’t believe the man-he doesn’t believe in the program and as a matter of fact he will do all he can to scuttle it. Be warned Mr. COP the men are no damn good and I charge them with feeding Ingraham and Laing with police secrets on a daily basis.
Thank you. Forrester J Carroll J.P Freeport, Grand Bahama July 2012
Letter On The Weakness of The Leader of The Opposition
July 21st, 2012
Dear Editor,
leadership is a funny thing! Often times it’s not the position that makes the man, the man makes the position. Let me start of by saying I have the utmost respect for Dr Hubert Minnis. I think he is a nice man with good intentions, but in all honesty, I don’t think he has the political savvy, charisma or the ability to lay down the political hammer in him.
Dr Minnis is a nice guy, but nice guys don’t win elections. To be a leader, on must be secured in his himself and his position. Any signs of incompetency, weakness or inability to deal with threats only serves to feed those who aspire for his throne.
On May 27th, after Dr Minnis was elected as party leader, he said he and his team will look to “renew the party, revitalize plans, rebuild confidence...” These are things one would expect the new leader to say after such a loss, but little did he know that he has to keep the PLP close and his FNM friends closer.
Mr. Minnis wasn’t even the elected leader for two weeks when dribble mouth Charles Maynard went on TV on June 6th and dribbled the FNM's dirty laundry regarding their new leader. According to The Dribbler, forces have already aligned in the FNM and have agreed on giving Dr Minnis 12 to 18 months to impress. Well blow me down!
Firstly, The Dribbler embarrassed Dr Minnis and his party when he made that revelation. There are certain things you keep in house. That bit of information, was one of those things. But I could understand if this sentiment was expressed privately a few months after Dr Minnis was in office and people had a chance to see how he operates and how he carries himself, but for The Dribbler to pull the curtain back and allow the entire country to see what the power brokers of the FNM are already thinking about Dr Minnis tells me that they view Dr Minnis as a company man who will do whatever is asked of him and won’t put up a fuss.
In essence Dr Minnis, in the capacity as leader, is no more than a place holder, a seat warmer, someone whose job it is to keep the party together until the chosen one is ready to step forward! Dr Minnis statements about renewing, revitalizing and rebuilding the party is just talk. His own Chairman has already set the clock.
If I was the new leader of the FNM, I think the prudent thing to do is to wait a few months before criticizing the new government and spend the early months in the bowels of the party establishing contacts, putting my people in place, weeding out bad apples, and begin making plans to move forward. But apparently, that is not Dr Minnis style. In the ensuing weeks to follow, Dr Minnis has criticized the PLP's budget, accused the PLP of victimization and their inability to control crime all the while ignoring his flank, his FNM flank.
Did someone not tell Dr Minnis that the very things he is criticizing the PLP about, 8 weeks after an election, are issues that have carried over from his administrations prior 5 years in office? Somebody should have told Dr Minnis that if he is to criticize the new government this close after an election, he is indirectly criticizing his own administration’s handling of those issues. I guess Dr Minnis expected things to change in a matter of weeks, but I digress!
But the jokiest attack came on July 2nd when the FNM released a statement criticizing Mr. Christie for taking a long time make his board appointments. If you claim Mr. Christie is taking too long, then which prior administration's time frame of board appointments are you comparing Christie's too?
Mr. Ingraham named his board appointments by July 8th 2007. If your using that as the comparative time line, then why attack Mr. Christie about his delay in appointing his boards when he had another week to go?
If the FNM saw this date was drawing near, why not wait until the after the 8th to make that attack? LOL! In their eagerness to paint Mr. Christie as slow and indecisive, they ejaculated prematurely and in the process made themselves look foolish. And the thing is they probably would have scored a cheap political point had they just waited.
Dr Minnis better tighten up his ship because these kinds of sophomoric mistakes that he, his party and his chairman are making will only cause the establishment in the party to shorten that 12-18 month period!
But the granddaddy of them all came on Thursday July 19th when former PM Ingraham gave a press conference after he tendered his resignation from Parliament! Mr. Ingraham did something that totally cut off Mr. Minnis at the knees. I honestly felt badly for Mr. Minnis as the former PM had just made statements that totally undermined Mr. Minnis and his credibility as leader of the FNM.
Mr. Ingraham said that the date of his resignation taking affect his been altered for the express reason so “HIS CANDIDATE” in the upcoming bye-election would have enough time to meet the residency requirements for him to be eligible to be on the ballot.
Wait a dam minute! Who is the leader of the FNM? Is it not Dr Minnis? 24 hrs prior, Dr Minnis was quoted in the Tribune as saying a final decision on a candidate is not expected “for a while.” On July 13th, The Nassau Guardian reported that Mr. Minnis said the process for selecting a candidate would be a “...democratic process.”
Dr Minnis, you are the leader of the party and for all intents and purposes, Mr. Ingraham just undermined your dumb ass. The entire bye election has Mr. Ingraham's finger prints all over it and not yours and to make it worse, Mr. Ingraham has now said so publicly!
Even if Dr Minnis was on board with Mr. Gomez selection, the fact that Papa said what he said publicly, makes him look like he is not the one in charge and whatever he does is subject to Mr. Ingraham's approval!
Papa made it clear for all during the Thursday's press conference that HE wants and will get Greg Gomez to represent the FNM on the ticket. It also means that the other 3 candidates, Cay Mills, Jackson Mackintosh and Perry Thomas are essentially wasting their time as Mr. Ingraham has already decided who he wants. So, so much for that democratic process thingy Mr. Minnis was talking about.
Why is Dr Minnis making himself look less than a leader speaks volumes about him! Mr. Ingraham, though a former PM, is also the FORMER leader of the party. He should not have said what he said and Mr. Minnis should have said something right there and then to, at the very least, soften what Mr. Ingraham said. Wow!
The more I see of Mr. Minnis, the more the saying, “You don’t know me until you have lived with me” rings true. The establishment FNM's knows Dr Minnis. He is a good man and his heart is in the right place, but they seem to know that he doesn’t have “It,” thus they have given him 12-18 months to prove them wrong.
At this point it seems clear to me that Mr. Minnis is at best the 3rd fiddle in his own party. Mr. Ingraham has handpicked his candidate and Charles “The Dribbler” Maynard publicly gave him an expiration date. Dr Minnis don't look like no leader to me nor can he say his position is secure.
Dr Minnis, you need to man up. You have shown you don't want to rock the boat! Well bro, you better start rocking that boat from side to side. Don't be another Tommy Turnquest, be your own man. If you want respect, than start acting like you ARE the leader.
Your the captain now, or at least for another 12-18 months, so what the heck, leave your imprint on the the party, implement your own vision, make your own path and who doesn’t buy into it, tell them to cut bait or get out of the boat!
Loretta wants your job and she knows Papa is propping you up. She also knows Papa's grip and influence in the party will naturally weaken as time goes on. This is all the more reason you need to be your own man and do what is in your and the party's best interest.
If Loretta is making waves internally and she doesn't have Papa's backing, that should be enough to tell you that Mr. Ingraham is already weak internally and in another 12-18 months, he will be even weaker! Don't be a fool, man up and if you go down, go down doing it your way. Your legacy as FNM leader is at stake too!
Altec
(AltecBahamas2012@yahoo.com)
IN PASSING
Mitchell To D.C.
Fred Mitchell’s official visit to Washington D.C. will take place on Tuesday 31st July and not 24th July as previously announced. The Minister is expected to make a reply to the Organization of American States report on the general elections held in The Bahamas on 7th May. In the meantime, Mr. Mitchell attended the wedding of the daughter of his college friends Diane and Clarence Stukes on Saturday 28th July in Washington D.C..
Mitchell In Marsh Harbour
Fred Mitchell MP is visiting Marsh Harbour, Abaco in his capacity as immigration minister today. He returns to Nassau on Monday 30th July.
Dame Marguerite Sworn In As Acting GG Dame Marguerite Pindling will act as Governor General for three weeks in the absence from the country of Sir Arthur Foulkes and Lady Foulkes who are attending the Olympic Games as the guests of the Queen in London. He will then travel on to France for a private visit with friends.
The photo of the reception after the swearing in was taken by Peter Ramsay. The photo shows the Chief Justice Sir Michael Barnett, Dame Marguerite and Sean McWeeney Q.C.
Mitchell Looking Down From The Window
He said he would jump. Fred Mitchell MP in this photo taken by Peter Ramsay on the day that Hubert Ingraham walked out of the House of Assembly Wednesday 25th July.
A New GG
Speculation is that a new Governor General should be appointed now that a new political administration is in power. Problem is that each time that a Governor General retires, you have the issue of his full salary being paid with a car and police aide to be supplied to him and his wife for life. We now have Sir Orville Turnquest and Dame Ivy Dumont as retirees on the public purse. We also have the widows of the deceased Governor Generals Sir Henry Taylor, Sir Clifford Darling, receiving half their pensions. We ought to think carefully about this before jumping to that unless the present occupant of the office wants to go then that’s quite another matter.
Inquiring Minds Want To Know
Where was Loretta Butler Turner on the day that Hubert Ingraham gave his last press conference in the House of Assembly? The leader Dr. Hubert Minnis was there but his Deputy was missing in action.
Government To Amend The Law
Police Minister Bernard Nottage announced in the House of Assembly on Wednesday 25th July that he will move to amend the police act to remove any restriction on the term of the Commissioner of Police. The PLP campaigned against the amendment when it was passed by the FNM and pledged to repeal it.
Greg Gomez Chosen But Renardo Curry Will Win
Hubert Ingraham said he was delaying his resignation from the House because he wanted to give Greg Gomez who did not have the constitutional requirement to run for office the opportunity to be considered. Mr.Gomez moved back to The Bahamas less than a year ago. It showed who was really still in charge of the FNM. Now comes the news that Greg Gomez, who was hired on the 52 week programme on the minimum wage, in the Administrator's office is to be the candidate to attempt to keep the seat of Hubert Ingraham an FNM seat. Mr. Gomez is hardly known in the area. He will be up against Renardo Curry who was nominated by the PLP to run in the seat for the PLP in the bye-election once Mr. Ingraham resigns. The PLP made its choice of Mr. Curry on Thursday 28th July.
Bahamas Olympic Team
The Olympics have begun in London and this picture of the Bahamian team was shown on Facebook. It shows the team marching at the opening in London on Saturday 28th July. The team flag was carried by sprinter Chris Brown on Saturday 28th July. Complaints were made that some of the team members could not march with the team because the country did not supply enough uniforms for the whole team.
PM In Florida
COB students attending the 16th Annual International African American Hotel Ownership & Investment Summit and Trade Show are pictured with the Prime Minister following his address at the conference from left are: Kristin Johnson, Rick Ferguson, Mia Marshall, Prime Minister Perry Christie, Chantelle McIntosh, Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcolmbe, Rhoda Jackson, Consul General Bahamas Consulate Miami, Florida, Lou MePhee and Andy Ingraham. BIS Photo Peter Ramsay
The photo shows Kyle M. Dorsett who is on his way to France as a teacher of English from his University McGill in Montreal, Canada. He is a Bahamian success story. Here is his story in his own words. Congratulations and do well.
The following statement was issued by U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton on the occasion of Bahamian Independence Day:
Fredericka Wilson, Congresswoman in the United States sent this message on the occasion of Bahamian Independence Day:
