A threat to all Bahamians

When a prime minister uses his platform to make threats toward one of his country’s people, the same is a threat to all of its people.

When this is done on the floor of the House of Assembly – the people’s house – it is an assault not only on the people at large, but on the democracy through which the people elect men and women to sit not as their masters, but as their servants.

The Bahamas is no stranger to dark times where spite and victimization imbrued the fabric of the nation, turning brother against brother, striking fear in those who would speak truth to power, and making one’s constitutional right of association – be it political or otherwise – a burden to carry rather than a freedom to be enjoyed with dignity and pride.

The specter of spite and victimization reared its malevolent head during wrap up to the 2021/2022 budget debate, when Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis made disparaging and threatening comments against procurement specialist and former public procurement officer Daniel Ferguson, who had written several commentaries on deficiencies in the country’s procurement processes.

Minnis threatened to release confidential information on Ferguson if the former procurement officer in the ministries of finance and health continued his call for transparency in the award of government contracts – a call he appears qualified to make given his resume and years of government experience.

The prime minister went further to question whether Ferguson should be able to find gainful employment in his own country again, due to his commentaries highlighting the problem of multi-million-dollar contracts not put out to bid, and government’s failure to act upon recommendations aimed at strengthening public procurement processes.

To be clear, when a prime minister publicly asks of a Bahamian, “who would hire such an individual moving forward?”, it is tantamount to sowing seeds from the most powerful office in the land, that have the potential to spring into weeds which can choke that Bahamian’s ability to provide for himself and his family as he so desires.

Famed United States attorney Clarence Darrow once said, “You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other person’s freedom. You can only be free if I am free.”

One of the reasons political and social cannibalism continues to bring about pain and stagnation in The Bahamas is that many Bahamians fail to appreciate how the harm inflicted on one person at the hand of those with power, harms everyone whether we are connected to the person victimized or not.

By taking the attitude of “that’s him/her; that has nothing to do with me,” scores of Bahamians have unwittingly encouraged the formation of what in some respects is a society where Bahamians are treated as second-class citizens whose contributions are not valued, and whose humanity is regarded as mere putty in the hands of errant politicians seeking to mold therewith, monuments to megalomania.

Minnis’ statements in the House of Assembly ought to be condemned in the strongest possible terms.

And in the national interest, all right-thinking Bahamians must strenuously and openly resist even the slightest appearance of a revival of spite and victimization in government, regardless of which party is in power.

Caught in a masquerade

The passing and bringing into force of laws does not, in and of itself, make a party in power transparent, but governing itself according to both the letter and spirit of such laws can demonstrate an administration’s truthfulness to a claim of governance in the sunshine.

Though the Freedom of Information Act contains a provision to protect whistleblowers, it was Prime Minister Minnis who cast aspersions on the character and future employability of a former public official, for revealing what Minnis claimed was confidential information.

It was this administration that passed the Public Procurement Act – though curiously delaying its commencement until September – but it was its prime minister who stood in the people’s house to condemn a Bahamian for pointing to weaknesses that could have the effect of undermining the purpose of the new legislation.

It was this administration that introduced – though left languishing – new anti-corruption legislation – but it was its prime minister who stood in the Parliament upon whose table that proposed legislation is collecting dust, and railed against concerns about the issuance of government contracts, even though transparent public procurement goes hand in hand with eradicating corruption.

A government that is truly committed to transparency and accountability respects the essential role the public plays in developing an open society, and, therefore, not only welcomes but encourages the public to speak truth to power, and to hold the feet of public officials to the fire.

To celebrate oneself as ushering in a period of transparency not seen in other governments, while attacking a Bahamian for speaking truth to power about transparency, is to engage in rank hypocrisy.

When Minnis made his comments against Ferguson because of his call for the very transparency in public finances that the present administration claims it is champion of, the prime minister sent a clear message to the Bahamian people that he and his administration are not who they claim to be.

Let’s face it.

A government’s ability to award contracts to those whose support it wishes to either reward, secure, retain or regain, is an invaluable asset in its war chest.

Government contracts make up a large segment of public expenditure each year, making openness and fairness in the public procurement process critical to proper management of the public’s money.

Given the country’s record national debt and its staggering recurrent deficits, overseen during a state of emergency which empowers the prime minister to authorize the award of contracts outside the normal procurement processes, government contracts have become a hot-button topic in recent months.

Transparency International in its 2015 G20 position paper on transparency in public procurement said, “… few government activities create greater temptations or offer more opportunities for corruption than public sector procurement.

“According to OECD estimates, corruption drains between 20 percent and 25 percent of national public procurement budgets. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime states that ‘a procurement system that lacks transparency and competition is the ideal breeding ground for corrupt behavior’.”

It is for reasons such as this, that Minnis ought to have welcomed Ferguson’s professional opinion on strengthening public procurement in The Bahamas.

Since the key to public procurement is the public’s right to know, a prime minister whose administration has nothing to hide, should have no problem with a former procurement officer who has represented The Bahamas internationally, sharing his views with the Bahamian people.

Despite repeated calls, the prime minister has not brought to Parliament a report on all contracts issued during the ongoing state of emergency.

Though the attorney general argued that Minnis is not legally required to bring such a report, the argument entirely misses the point that a transparent and accountable government will make public for the Bahamian people what they have a right to know, whether or not the law compels it to do so.

Incidentally, a benefit of developing a professional specialty ought to be that one’s considered and verifiable opinions should be respected and sought after for their value in developing a more modern and efficient society.

Minnis’ reaction to a Bahamian professional with decades of experience, triggered simply because of statements that displeased him, is a precise example of why Bahamians who have the know-how and integrity to bring about much-needed advancement are unwilling to step forward for public service.

Bahamians are encouraged to get the best education money can buy, and to develop their skills to compete on a global stage, but when they do, they invariably find that the powers that be prefer them to act as one whose lack of personal development makes being a suppliant, a desirable or necessary state of being.

Based on his most recent commentary, Ferguson’s expressed confidence in his professional reputation makes him unbothered by Minnis’ threats and statements against his character.

But we need look no further than within the Minnis administration itself to see where examples of such actions seem troublingly commonplace, and tell a story far better than we can, about the country’s leadership.

Charity begins at home

Recall the firing of former Antiquities, Monuments and Museums (AMMC) board chairman, Centreville MP Reece Chipman, whose departure was colored by Minnis’ unsubstantiated suggestion of corruption and by his refusal to explain to the public the reason he fired Chipman.

A March 23, 2018 letter penned by Chipman to Minnis ahead of the firing was leaked to the public, wherein Chipman outlined numerous alleged financial irregularities at the corporation “of which you (Minnis) and the board are aware.”

Chipman went on to say, “You would have been presented by myself with the AMMC Act and regulations in order for us to be in compliance with the law. Obviously, these were ignored by the Office of the Prime Minister.”

Having left in the public domain a suggestion of corruption that was never qualified, the prime minister’s actions could very well have threatened Chipman’s future employability, particularly since he is a financial services professional.

Several months later, the MPs for Pineridge, Golden Isles and Bains and Grants Town were stripped of their government postings by the prime minister as punishment for having voted against the administration’s budget bill to increase value-added tax from 7.5 percent to 12 percent.

Chipman and Golden Isles MP Vaughn Miller later resigned from the Free National Movement (FNM).

When former Health Minister Dr. Duane Sands resigned from Cabinet following controversy over the import of COVID-19 test swabs by permanent residents, his departure was colored by a suggestion of dishonesty and impropriety, due to a statement he made regarding the number of passengers on board the flight bearing the swabs.

Minnis advised the public that Sands’ statement was inconsistent with the facts, but what Minnis did not tell the Bahamian people was that Sands’ statement, as Sands later revealed to Perspective in a June 2020 interview, was written not by him, but by the Office of the Prime Minister.

Shooting down repeated attempts by the press to get answers on what Sands’ offense actually was, Minnis left the door open for unwarranted speculation about Sands’ integrity.

When FNM MPs recently feigned support in the House for Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) MP Picewell Forbes, over what they sought to couch as wrongdoing meted out to Forbes by PLP Leader Philip Brave Davis, former Finance Minister Peter Turnquest stated that while his Cabinet colleagues showed support for Forbes, “not one” of them had risen to speak of what was done to him, though they know what occurred.

If one followed Turnquest’s statement in Parliament to its logical conclusion, the same begs the question of what wrongdoing might have been meted out to him by his leader, that he says his Cabinet colleagues are all aware of.

Turnquest resigned from Cabinet in the aftermath of untested fraud allegations appearing in a writ.

The East Grand Bahama MP has maintained that the allegations are false, and suspicions have swirled about how and why Turnquest came to be accused in a writ for a case wherein he is not named as a defendant.

Former Youth, Sports and Culture Minister Lanisha Rolle stood to clear her name during her contribution to the budget debate, telling MPs that a Cabinet Office statement linking her resignation to matters under investigation in the ministry caused her “hurt and harm”.

Minnis never accounted for why he had such a statement issued regarding Rolle’s resignation, and has yet to explain why she resigned, though he later advised that Rolle is not under investigation.

That, of course, did little to address the damage to Rolle’s reputation suffered by a Cabinet Office statement issued at a time when rampant social media accusations about the former minister were taking place.

Nassau Village MP and House Speaker Halson Moultrie became the latest to leave the FNM’s caucus earlier this year, telling us back in February that he has experienced a “sickening” level of pettiness at the hands of the prime minister.

Moultrie further stressed that “members of the Cabinet need to stop paying persons to put voice notes out in social media attacking their own”.

And in what has shaped up to be a messy nomination process for the FNM ahead of the upcoming general election, Agriculture and Marine Resources Minister Michael Pintard not only pointed to the prevailing mindset that losing a caucus member is inconsequential, but expressed hurt for one incumbent, acknowledging that more sensitivity ought to have occurred in how incumbents were treated.

The FNM’s nomination process was rife with talk in the public domain about subterfuge, and of incumbents being handled unfairly and disrespectfully, as affirmed by at least one FNM MP, Fort Charlotte MP Mark Humes.

Fox Hill MP Shonel Ferguson also made interventions about what she thought her contributions to the constituency meant for her position as the party’s standard bearer.

Her sentiments were palpable and spoke to a level of disappointment, the details of which may have perhaps been deemed better left unsaid.

The saying goes that charity begins at home and ends abroad.

If this trend of experiences is occurring within the governing FNM’s caucus at the hands of leadership, what then should the Bahamian people outside of that caucus expect to experience at the hands thereof?

Minnis said that if he is “pushed” by Ferguson, he would reveal the personnel files of his time in the government’s service.

Raising concerns about transparency ought to push the prime minister to improve upon his administration’s performance for the benefit of the Bahamian people.

Instead, in Minnis’ own words, it will push him to take retaliatory action against the individual who raised such concerns.

A prime minister who threatens to reveal confidential information about a person if he or she speaks truth to power, abuses the power vested in the office.

And doing so is evidence of a prime minister who is not worthy of being entrusted with that power.

The post A threat to all Bahamians appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.

source https://thenassauguardian.com/a-threat-to-all-bahamians/