bahamasuncensored.com
JUNE 2009
Compiled, edited and constructed by Russell Dames...  Updated every Sunday at 2 p.m.
Volume 7 © BahamasUncensored.com 2009
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The site is compiled and edited in The Bahamas by Russell Dames, with writer Claire Booth.  This site does not represent the views of Fred Mitchell, the Government of The Bahamas, the PLP or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

14th June, 2009
21st June, 2009
28th June, 2009
7th June, 2009
Welcome to bahamasuncensored.com
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...THE GOVERNMENT’S PROGRAMME DERAILED...

THE VIDEO LINK... THE LABOUR DAY PARADE...
PLP’S MOVES IN PHOTOS... IT HAPPENED BEFORE...
JACKASS OF THE WEEK... A NEW U.S. AMBASSADOR NOMINATED...
AIRPLANE TRAVEL - THE MYSTERY CRASH... SANDILANDS GRADUATION...
IN PASSING...
The Official Site of the Progressive Liberal Party... The Official Site of the Free National Movement...
PLPs On The Web... Interesting Places...
Bradley Roberts / PLP Grants Town Bahamas Government Website
Neville Wisdom / PLP Delaporte  Reg & Kit's Bahamas Links
Alfred Sears / PLP Fort Charlotte Bahamians On The Web
Melanie Griffin / PLP Yamacraw Bahamian Cycling News
John Carey / PLP Carmichael FredMitchellUncensored.Com ARCHIVES...
Grand Bahama PLP
Click on a heading to go to that story; press ctrl + home to return to the top of the page.


BLOCKED AT THE DOOR: It was a chilling scene.  Half a dozen police officers, some men, some women, some in khaki, some in the red stripe, but all of them ominous.  Members of Parliament for the Progressive Liberal Party were headed to the House of Assembly with Glenys Hanna Martin, the MP for Englerston and the Chairman of the PLP.  Mrs. Hanna Martin had been expelled from the House of Assembly the day before Wednesday 3rd June.  On that day she rose from her seat to ask for an explanation from the Government about the death of Michael Knowles, 15, in a police lock up in South Beach in New Providence.  The police said that he died by his own hand, using the drawstring from a pair of pants which he had on.  The mother of the boy denies that he had any pants with a drawstring.  In any event, what was a drawstring doing in his pants when all of that is supposed to be removed from the prisoner when he is put in the lock up including laces from shoes?  How is it possible for someone to have the time to hang themselves without someone spotting it?  What was a juvenile doing in a cell with nine other male adults?  These are all questions that needed answering.  It was a matter of critical public importance.  The government did not want to hear it.  The Speaker of the House demanded that she sit down.  When she did not sit down, he “named” her and then ordered her expelled from the House.  The government then moved a resolution, never put, to have Mrs. Hanna Martin removed from the House.  She said that she would not go, and the police were called to the House of Assembly to remove her but the PLP Members of Parliament moved to protect her, led by Dr. Bernard Nottage, the Leader of Opposition business in the House of Assembly.  The police were unable to remove her but the Speaker gave orders that she was not to enter the precincts the next day.  The scene then was set for Thursday 4th June when she was blocked from doing the people’s business by order of the Speaker and with the support of the FNM government.  Our photo of the week is the protest at the door of the House by the PLP as they sought to enter the House on Thursday 4th June.. BIS photo: Peter Ramsay

COMMENT OF THE WEEK

THE GOVERNMENT’S PROGRAMME DERAILED
For the first time in the history of the country, since independence in 1973, the government’s attempt to pass a budget for the country has been derailed.  On the face it, one might argue that it was derailed by the PLP led by its Chairman Glenys Hanna Martin for insisting that a matter of public importance be dealt with at the first opportunity on the agenda (see photo of the week).  But the real reason was the stupidity of Alvin Smith, the Speaker of the House of Assembly who is proving once again to act like an idiot.  The real reason was the arrogance and intransigence of a government ignorant of history, secure in their omniscience and reassured in the view that it doesn’t matter.

The response of the FNM to the matter raised by Glenys Hanna Martin shows the difference between the PLP and the FNM.  The PLP raised an issue about a dead boy, the FNM responded with rules and procedure.  The PLP talks about people.  The FNM talks about laws and regulations.  The PLP says people first.  The FNM, well we don’t know what they put first, but it certainly is not the people of the country.

What we found interesting while the whole matter unfolded in the House of Assembly was that Hubert Ingraham, the Prime Minister and the leader of this nefarious FNM bunch that runs the country, just sat there for a time with a vacant stare, as if he was in a drunken stupor, or having an out of body experience.  Then he tried cracking jokes with his followers in the House, to rally the troops.  Then he caught himself when he realized that clowning was not going to help the situation.  In this regard, a special condemnation must again be directed toward Charles Maynard, the Minister of Culture, who in fact displays no sign of being cultured at all.  He cracked sick jokes; he attacked Mrs. Hanna.  He tried to make fun.  All of it fell flat, although one could hear the hollow laughter of FNM partisans from the other side of the House.  Mrs. Hanna Martin answered back as good as he gave.  In the end, he looked stupid, but it was probably lost on him.

Then there was the lack of judgment on their part, a lack of judgment and discretion which results in extreme behaviour, overreach which results in them having to dig in their heels, set on top of their faulty logic that what they began they could not undo.

During five years in office of the PLP from 2002 to 2007, the 25 years from 1967 to 1992, no Member of Parliament was expelled from the House of Assembly under the order of Speaker or with the support of the majority.  The last time such an event transpired was in 1965 when Arthur Hanna, the now Governor General and the father of the Member of Parliament for Englerston was expelled from the House and carted out by the police, preceded by the late Sir Milo Butler.  According to The Tribune that was the first time that had happened in the then 236 years of the Parliament.

That was in the days of the United Bahamian Party (UBP).  The dreaded UBP with Stafford Sands, Pop Symonette and Bobby Symonette were thrown out office in 1967.  They disappeared from history.  They were replaced by the FNM.  So is it any surprise with the FNM being the successors to the UBP that once again a PLP is thrown out of the House of Assembly.  And the Speaker of the House and the FNM are so ignorant to those facts that they do not care and act to do so anyway.  Why would Alvin Smith want to go down in history as being associated with the United Bahamian Party and the hated Speaker Bobby Symonette?

Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.

For the first time that anyone can remember, the government of The Bahamas ended up walking out of the House.  Not the Opposition.  The Opposition was there and ready to do business but the Opposition was prevented from doing the business of the people on Wednesday 3rd June because the government walked out of the House.  The House was suspended for five minutes to remove the Member for Englerston.  The Speaker said he would not come back into the House unless she was moved or moved.  She was not and did not.  He refused to come back so the House was suspended until the next day at 10 a.m. without a resolution but by operation of the rules.  The government walked out and said they would be back the next day.

This was a shameful and disgraceful act on the part of the Speaker of the House.  He is condemned again in history for his act.  He has once again shown himself to be partisan and injudicious.  He ought to resign.  If he does not resign, Hubert Ingraham should find a mechanism to replace him.  It is as simple as that.

Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 6th June 2009 up to midnight: 159,308.

Number of hits for the month of June up to Saturday 6th June 2009 up to midnight: 121,911.

Number of hits for the year 2006 up to Saturday 6th June 2009 up to midnight: 4,746,320.


CONTACT US AT E-MAIL:placid_point@yahoo.com

THE VIDEO LINK
    The PLP Media man was present for all of the action and drama at the House of Assembly on Thursday 4th June.  Visit www.myplp.com Watch and enjoy
 
 

THE LABOUR DAY PARADE
Nassau

    This year Labour Day was celebrated on Friday 5th June.  The first Friday in June is set aside to honour the workers of the country.  It has been celebrated as a holiday since 1962.  Sir Randol Fawkes, the late head of the Bahamas Federation of Labour was the mover of the resolution to create the public holiday.  The day was chosen because it closely approximates the time of the Burma Road Riots of 1942, which took place on the 1st and 2nd June 1942.  The riots were the first spontaneous protest by Bahamian labourers for the improvement of the working conditions in the country.
    This year the National Congress of Trade Unions (NCTU) and Trade Union Congress (TUC), the two umbrella labour organizations could not agree on a single march.  The PLP joined the NCTU march, fully regaled in their gold shirts, led by Perry Christie, the Leader of the party and former Prime Minister.
Photos: Peter Ramsay




Photos: Peter Ramsay

Freeport

    Fred Mitchell, MP for Fox Hill and Obie Wilchcombe, the Member of Parliament for West End and Bimini joined the trade union leaders and the unions in Freeport for the annual parade of the workers in Freeport.  The march took a different route this year.  Strangely, instead of going through the populated areas of the city, the march went up the East Sunrise Highway, up Seahorse Drive, to Midshipman and then to Taino Beach.  Mr. Wilchcombe spoke on behalf of the Progressive Liberal Party at the brief ceremony that followed.  Again, PLPs both young and old showed up in their colours, outnumbering FNMs two to one.
Photos: Allyson Smith
Above, Obie Wilchcombe, MP West End and Bimini PLP and Fred Mitchell, MP Fox Hill PLP with two supporters of the M team, the new leadership team of the Bahamas Hotel Catering and Allied Workers Union.


Left, Assistant Secretary General Northern region Michelle Reckley, with her son James, engineering student…
Right, Allyson Smith, Progressive Liberal Action Network (PLAN) with tourists on the march joining in the fun...


Left; MPs Mitchell and Wilchcombe with ‘Bumble’, a Fox Hillian who is FNM, living in Freeport…  Right, young PLPs on the march flash the sign...


PLP Senator Michael Darville with children lining up for Labour Day.

Photos: Allyson Smith


 

PLP’S MOVES IN PHOTOS

    It was a day of great excitement for the Progressive Liberal Party on Wednesday 3rd June.  The Budget debate was set to begin, but Alvin Smith, the hapless FNM Speaker set the cat amongst the pigeons by refusing to hear Glenys Hanna Martin, the PLPs Chair, who was speaking out on behalf of the relatives of the dead 15-year-old boy Michael Knowles.  This led to a confrontation with the Speaker who ordered her removed from the House of Assembly by the police.  This is only the second time in the history of the Parliament that this has happened.  Then it got more bizarre with the Prime Minister and his colleagues leaving the House, the House resuming the next day at 10 a.m. and Mrs. Hanna Martin being blocked by the police from entering the House.  The PLP chose not to have confrontation with the police.  They had made their point.  PLPs joined their leaders in the public square on Thursday 4th June.
BIS photos: Peter Ramsay [Rally photos: Courtesty PLP]






BIS photos: Peter Ramsay [Rally photos: Courtesty PLP]


 
 

IT HAPPENED BEFORE

    The expulsion of Glenys Hanna Martin proves the adage those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.  It also shows the FNM’s ignorance of the history of The Bahamas and their association with the hated and dreaded UBP.  With one stroke, it is confirmed that they are the inheritors of the UBP.  How Alvin Smith could get them into such a mess is beyond us.  Here it is, the daughter of Arthur Hanna who was the last person thrown out of the House by the UBP, being thrown out of the House by the FNM, inheritors of the UBP.  The UBP agreed to die and amalgamated with the FNM in 1972.  There are people on that side who ought to have known better, and not allowed themselves to fall into that trap.
    Charles Maynard MP (FNM) for Golden Isles is obviously a lost soul.  He is the grandson of the suffragette Georgiana K. Symonette and he supported what happened in the House.  Milo Butler’s granddaughter Loretta Butler Turner (FNM Montagu) whose grandfather was thrown out on the last occasion just before Arthur Hanna, sat there and agreed for Glenys Hanna Martin to be thrown out of the House of Assembly.  Hubert Ingraham, the Prime Minister and leader of the FNM has confirmed his status as the thickheaded Uncle Tom of the bunch.  What a pity.
Tribune file photo
 
 

JACKASS OF THE WEEK

    What do you do when a man persists in carrying on with stupid behaviour?  You try to train him.  You try to be civil with him, but he persists in wrongdoing and unfairness.  The situation got so bad this week, that the man who applied the rules of the House like Dumbo the elephant; Alvin Smith (FNM North Eleuthera) was busy writing himself into the history books as being connected to the dreaded racist United Bahamian Party, stopping representatives of the people from coming into the House and expelling those representatives.
    Alvin Smith needs to find a new job.  He, like Elma Campbell Chase (former Senator and now Ambassador removed from the Senate to China after complaints from FNMs and the public) and Kay Smith (see story IN PASSING) are an embarrassment to the FNM and Hubert Ingraham needs to find a new job for him.  You cannot keep getting your party in trouble from embarrassing missteps and then expect to survive politically.  For seeking to expel Glenys Hanna Martin from the House of Assembly this week, we have no other choice; the unanimous consent of the Board of Editors is that Alvin Smith is the Jackass of The Week.
 
 

A NEW U.S. AMBASSADOR NOMINATED
    We can now confirm the appointment  of  Nicole A. Avant as Ambassador designate to The Bahamas for the United States of America.  We reported earlier that a name had been forwarded to The Bahamas government and the agreement to that name was  awaiting approval of The Bahamas government.  It is not known when she will be confirmed and take up her appointment in Nassau.  Here is what information we know about her:
    Avant, 41, currently serves as vice president of Interior Music and Avant Garde Music Publishing.  She is a businesswoman, philanthropist and activist, she has been recognized for her tireless efforts to mobilize the younger generation towards greater charitable and political involvement.  Avant is the eldest child of Clarence Avant and his wife, Jacqueline, and the sister of Alexander Avant.  Her father is a music industry executive who served as chairman of Motown Records and as a board member with PolyGram.
    She has worked as an academic counsellor at The Neighborhood Academic Initiative, a USC mentorship program for high school students.  Ms. Avant serves as a board member for the Bogart Pediatric Cancer Research Program, the Center for American Progress and Best Buddies, and was named one of the American Cancer Society Next Generation Leaders in 2007.
    Avant has acted in a small number of television shows, including the FOX series JAG, however she is best known for her political support for the Democratic Party, an interest she shares with her father.  During the campaign for the Democratic Party nomination and subsequent 2008 Presidential election, Avant was the Southern California Finance Co-Chair of the Barack Obama presidential campaign.
    In addition to her work for Barack Obama’s campaign, Avant has been involved with fundraising for Al Gore.
Photo: Internet video capture
 
 

AIRPLANE TRAVEL - THE MYSTERY CRASH
    When Bahamians travel on those little unstable commuter planes from Nassau to Miami, they think of the difference between a Bahamasair pilot and an American Airlines pilot.  American Airlines pilots seem to say to themselves the specifications on the aircraft are “x” and so whatever weather there is by straight line, they fly through it, to the discomfort of the passengers and sometimes to screams.  Not so a Bahamasair pilot.  They fly over, and around the weather.  No bumps, the comfort of the passengers first.  That may be the key to flight 447, the now ill-fated flight from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris, France.  The flight appears to have broken up last Saturday 30th May as it was four hours into an 11-hour flight at 35,000 feet 400 kilometres off the coast of Brazil.
    The last report is that they spotted and picked up two bodies and a briefcase containing an Air France ticket.  Weather seems the most likely cause.  This is an area of tough thunderstorms.  It appears that the plane’s speed instrument was not working properly, due to a systemic fault, which is only now to be corrected by replacing the part on other planes.  This meant that the airplane may have been going at faster or slower speeds than it ought to have and it appears to have broken up in the sky.  The search goes on for clues.
    What we say is that all airlines ought to dedicate themselves to safety first and stop thinking that these planes are indestructible.  They are man made and should fly on the side of safety and pilots and their bosses should not assume that the tolerances of the airplane should be stretched merely because the manufacturer says that this is what the plane can do.
 
 

SANDILANDS GRADUATION

    Fred Mitchell, MP for Fox Hill, attended the passing out ceremony of the Sandilands Primary School on Thursday 4th June.  At the graduation he presented the Member of Parliament’s trophy to the head boy of the school and valedictorian of the school and the class of 2009 Lorenz Wright.  Mr. Wright will be going on to St. Augustine’s College, the Catholic High School to continue his education.
    Mr. Mitchell congratulated Mr. Wright but also advised his parents of the very special responsibility that they have to ensure that Lorenz pilots his way through five difficult years in high school, and the need for his father air traffic controller Gary Wright to be ever vigilant to ensure that all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune do not set upon him.  Mr. Mitchell said that Lorenz was quite a special young man and needs the full support of the community and his parents to continue to succeed.
Photo: Miguel Taylor
 
 

IN PASSING
TCI Have Three Weeks
The final report of the Commission of Inquiry in the Turks and Caicos Islands has been presented to the governor.  He is now consulting with London.  The Turks government of Galmo ‘Gilly’ Williams has three weeks before their constitutional democracy is suspended in the Turks and Caicos.  All appeals have been ignored including an appeal to the United Nations, to Caricom, and to the British government themselves.  The British government has lost any moral right to suspend the constitution of the Turks and Caicos given the scandals right now in Britain that threaten to bring down the government of Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Finco Income Reversal
The Tribune reported during the past week, that FINCO, the largest mortgage lender in the country has suffered a 100 percent reversal in its net profit this year over last year.  It is a sign of the bad time here and to come.

Law Firms Laying Off Staff
The big law firms: Graham Thompson, Callenders and Co., Higgs and Johnson have all laid off some professional and ancillary staff in the face of the economic downturn in the country.  Colin Callender, the lead partner in Callenders, says that because of the government’s decision to remove the cap on real property tax of $35,000 and the acute rise in the tax to second home owners, there has been a slow down in the high end sales and building of homes, which has cut their conveyancing business considerably.  The result, the layoffs.  Another sign of bad things here and worse to come.

Kay Smith Leaves For Atlanta
Former FNM Senator Kay Smith has left for Atlanta to take up her position as Consul General in Atlanta.  She is the first Bahamian in that post.  She has resigned her seat in the Senate and as Parliamentary Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister in charge of Freeport, ZNS and the Bahamas Information Services.  She was quite unpopular and joins Elma Campbell Chase, another former FNM Senator, now Ambassador to China, as having been pushed out because of her unpopularity in Grand Bahama.  Even FNMs thought that she was simply mean to people.  The country now has to pay a price for this including a contract for her for three years overseas, a brand new house at taxpayer’s expense.  Many are breathing a sigh of relief.

Fifty Three Years Tomorrow - PLP Anniversary
It was 8th June 1956 that the first Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) representatives took their seats in the House of Assembly.  That anniversary passes on Monday 8th June 2009, tomorrow.  The six, known as the Magnificent Six were the first members of the House to sit as a political party in the history of the country and the party.  The United Bahamian Party was formed two year later in 1958.  The party’s MHAs as they were then known were Cyril Stevenson, Samuel Isaacs, Clarence Bain, Lynden Pindling, Randol Fawkes, Milo Butler.  We remember them today, all passed on to glory.

T & T Citizen Judge In Nassau
Justice of Appeal Stanley John has resigned his place in the Trinidad Court of Appeal and is to take up an appointment in Nassau on the Court of Appeal of The Bahamas.  Mr. John comes straight out of controversy where he attacked Magistrates in Trinidad for the sentences and almost caused a strike in the Magistracy there, leading to an apology from the Trinidadian Chief Justice to the Magistrates.  It is not known what his judicial temperament is and what his philosophical views are.  Practitioners continue to complain about the private manner in which the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition appoint judges without any input from the Bahamas Bar Association.

Ife Sears Resigns Her Crown
Last week, we reported on the Miss Bahamas Universe Pageant.  There was a controversy over the top prize.  The organizers have defended the integrity of the judging, but now comes another surprise.  The second runner up and winner of the Miss Earth Prize, Ife Sears, daughter of former Education Minister Alfred Sears has resigned the crown after two weeks to pay more attention to her studies.  It immediately started speculation that there were problems with the judging in the pageant.

Bad Times In Grand Bahama
The city of Freeport seems to be in deep trouble.  The city has lost its clean sheen and there is a great deal of concern over the failing economy, particularly the dead tourism business.  The Grand Bahama Port Authority seems unable to help and the government is doing nothing to help.



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14th June, 2009
Welcome to bahamasuncensored.com
  How do you do today?  It's great to have you as a reader.  We have the most incisive political news about and from The Bahamas!
Please tell all your friends about us.

...THE POLICE GET IT WRONG...

MITCHELL TO SPEAK AT COB POLITICS CLASS... SEARS SAYS INGRAHAM MUST GO...
FRANK SMITH SEES THE FLAWS IN THE BUDGET... MELANIE ON THE BUDGET: RESPONDS TO THE SPEAKER...
MITCHELL SCHOOLS SPEAKER... GLENYS RETURNS TO THE HOUSE...
MALCOLM ADDERLEY ON THE BUDGET... SHADOW MINISTER’S QUESTIONS ON CG HOME IN ATLANTA...
THE FOREIGN MINISTER SPEAKS... MILO BUTLER JR. DIES...
PARENTS DAY AWARDS AT SANDILANDS... FOX HILL PARENTS DAY PHOTOS...
LAST STAND IN THE TURKS AND CAICOS... LETTER TO THE EDITOR...
IN PASSING...
The Official Site of the Progressive Liberal Party... The Official Site of the Free National Movement...
PLPs On The Web... Interesting Places...
Bradley Roberts / PLP Grants Town Bahamas Government Website
Neville Wisdom / PLP Delaporte  Reg & Kit's Bahamas Links
Alfred Sears / PLP Fort Charlotte Bahamians On The Web
Melanie Griffin / PLP Yamacraw Bahamian Cycling News
John Carey / PLP Carmichael FredMitchellUncensored.Com ARCHIVES...
Grand Bahama PLP
Click on a heading to go to that story; press ctrl + home to return to the top of the page.


A GOOD DEBATE: The Progressive Liberal Party Members of Parliament had a good week this past week in the House of Assembly.  They scored point after point in the House against the government and what has been described as a “hopeless” budget.  The team that spoke included Dr. Bernard Nottage, who led the debate.  Others who spoke were Alfred Sears MP Ft. Charlotte, Frank Smith MP for St. Thomas More and Fred Mitchell MP for Fox Hill.  Later, Glenys Hanna Martin, Obie Wilchcombe, Picewell Forbes, Alfred Gray, Melanie Griffin, Anthony Moss, Oswald Ingraham, Philip ‘Brave’ Davis, all spoke.  Left to come, Vincent Peet, Cynthia Pratt and Leader Perry Christie.  We present a photo composite of some of the PLP’s speakers for the week as our photo of the week.. BIS photos: Peter Ramsay

COMMENT OF THE WEEK

THE POLICE GET IT WRONG
We have said it before in this column.  The police do not have the leadership that they should have on the Force.  The Force is in a holding pattern and the morale of the Force is going down rapidly because of a bad decision by the FNM’s Leader Hubert Ingraham to appoint Reginald Ferguson as Commissioner of Police.  Nothing has demonstrated that more this week than two events: one a ruling by a judge of the Supreme Court, the other a serious mistake made by the police which caused panic and outrage in the community and which might have endangered the life of an innocent man.

In the case Sean Saunders and Warren Ellis vs. the Attorney General, Justice John Isaacs ruled that the prosecution against them for charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder should be stayed.  The murder happened a decade ago and the case was only now coming to trial.

In the case of the mistake by the police, they announced in the press on Monday 8th June that a five-month-old baby had died of molestation by a 62-year-old man.  The outrage that followed led to crowds gathering around the courts seeking revenge against someone who they thought would be charged.  It turned out that the baby died of pneumonia.

In the court case, Lorraine Major, an expected crown witness, recanted her evidence.  She said in an affidavit that she had been pressured by two police officers, then Assistant Commissioner Reginald Ferguson and one ASP Fernander.  She also alleged that her signature had been forged on the document.  The Judge decided that in light of the uncontroverted evidence on the point, he would stay the prosecution and seemed to adopt the language of the affidavit in terms of the allegations made against the police.

The Commissioner of Police Reginald Ferguson responded with an appeal, but he also concluded that the statement by the Judge was unfortunate.  The government said nothing save that the Prime Minister rose in his seat in the House to say that the matter would be appealed.  We know that the Bahamian Court of Appeal is perfectly able to accomplish the most amazing legal gymnastics, but we find it difficult to see how they will get around the uncontroverted evidence in this matter.  The Crown did not bother to put an affidavit in reply to say it simply was not true.

Then the startling headline of the death of the baby was generated from the police blotter.  All the newspapers ran with it as did the radio stations and TV news.  The country was upset and outraged.  The Baptist leadership called a press conference to say that this was a nation in crisis.  Most frighteningly of all, the story of the crowds that gathered outside the court on the rumour that the person was to be charged, and then the crowd charged a police vehicle with someone in it unconnected to the matter but they thought that was the person and the mainly female crowd charged the vehicle.  No one was hurt

Then the news came on Thursday 11th June that the child had not died of molestation after all.  The police insisted that they had acted properly but the fact is they got it wrong and caused panic in the country.

There are those who would argue that this has nothing to do with the leadership of the Royal Bahamas Police Force.  They say that the Commissioner leaves these things to operational control.  The point we make, though, is that there is a lynch mob atmosphere being perpetrated within the Force.  You have police officers themselves who are being brought up on charges that they thought had been settled in the criminal courts and were long ago lost in the bureaucracy.  The staff association of the Force is unhappy about that and are publicly calling for Mr. Ferguson to go.

But now you add to that an allegation that the Commissioner himself was involved in seeking to pressure a witness in a case, together with the condemnation of his conduct by the Commission of Inquiry in the Lorequin report and you see the problem.

No one knows why the Prime Minister in his discretion has decided to stick with the status quo.  You will remember that when he sent Ellison Greenslade and Marvin Dames off to Canada as the next most senior officers, he said that within one year he would decide which of them would head the Force.  We think his difficulty is that he wants to give the leadership of the Force to Mr. Dames because he is perceived to be FNM.  But the problem is the Force itself does not support that.  Further, he knows that this would be a problem with the PLP.  So is that why he is sticking with the status quo?  You add into the mix the fact that Mr. Ferguson is perceived to be FNM and he is also the brother of the Chairman of the Free National Movement.

There was a period in the previous history of the Force in an independent country when people simply said that the Commissioner of Police had stayed on too long and as a result the Force had lost its modernizing edge.  That was the time of the Thompson/ Bartlett era.  Then many argued that the successor to that group Bernard Bonamy was appointed at too young a time and stayed too long and again there was a problem.  Mr. Ingraham comes from that school of thought.  He has said that there is no circumstance under which he would countenance appointing someone in the Force who could be commissioner for 20 years or more.  That bars Mr. Greenslade or Mr. Dames under the present law as it relates to retirement.

Mr. Ingraham changed the law to limit the term of the Commissioner of Police to ten years.  The PLP has argued that this is unconstitutional.  That Act also says the retirement age of a commissioner is 60.  Mr. Ferguson is 62.  So if the law were brought into force could Mr. Ferguson be forced out?  There are so many contradictions in the present stand of the government.  The whole point is that the Force itself is in a state of flux once again.  It does not have the right leadership.  Neither does the country for that matter.  And we certainly know that even if you disagree with all of that, last week the Force got it wrong.

Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 13th June 2009 up to midnight: 184,695.

Number of hits for the month of June up to Saturday 13th June 2009 up to midnight: 306,606.

Number of hits for the year 2009 up to Saturday 13th June 2009 at midnight: 4,931,015.


CONTACT US AT E-MAIL:placid_point@yahoo.com

MITCHELL TO SPEAK AT COB POLITICS CLASS

    Fred Mitchell will be the special guest of the College of The Bahamas Politics and Government class on Thursday 18th June.  The class is taught by Professor Felix Bethel.  The class will be held at Choices Restaurant at the College.  The first hour will be a showing of the address of Mr. Mitchell to the House on the Budget.  This will be followed by comments by the students.  The class begins at 8 p.m.
 
 

SEARS SAYS INGRAHAM MUST GO
    Alfred Sears PLP MP for Ft. Charlotte, in a scorching address to the House on the Budget on Monday the 8th  June, told the House that Hubert Ingraham should do what Sir Lynden Pindling did in 1991 and relinquish the office of Minister of Finance.  He said that Mr. Ingraham has no vision and is a failure.  You may click here for the full address by Mr. Sears.
 

FRANK SMITH SEES THE FLAWS IN THE BUDGET

    Frank Smith MP St. Thomas More made a comprehensive address to the House on the budget on Monday 8th June.  He said that the Prime Minister showed a lack of leadership in his presentation.  He took a long hard look at agriculture and showed how the government had failed to put the money into making sure that agriculture worked.  You may click here for the full statement of Mr. Smith.
 
 

MELANIE ON THE BUDGET: RESPONDS TO THE SPEAKER

    Melanie Griffin is the Opposition’s Shadow Minister of Social Services.  It used to be her portfolio before the PLP lost office in 2007.  She reviewed the work of the government and showed that the programmes that they say they have are not working and have simply not delivered in these harsh economic times.  Mrs. Griffin was particularly concerned about the protection of children.  She said that she had repeatedly called for the Child Protection Act that was passed when she was minister, to be brought into force.  She said that the government had refused.  She said that the problem was particularly urgent given the increased reports of child abuse in the country that seems to be getting worse.  At the end of the address, she took on the Speaker of the House for attacking her for not standing up when he was leaving the House.  She called his comment unfair.  The Speaker ordered her remarks in part struck from the record.  You may click here for the full statement.
 
 

MITCHELL SCHOOLS SPEAKER
    The following is the statement of Fred Mitchell MP in response to the comments made by the Speaker of the House of Assembly on Monday 8th June.  Mr. Mitchell held a press conference on Thursday 11th June in the Committee Room of the House of Assembly.
    “On Monday 8th June when the House of Assembly suspended its session for the luncheon break the Speaker of the House made a comment from his chair that two members defiantly refused to stand as his procession was leaving the House chamber for a break.  He named me and the Member of Parliament for Yamacraw Melanie Griffin as the two members.  He went on to issue what I took to be a threat dressed up in the garb of advice, not to repeat sitting down while his procession was leaving.
    “First, I wish to say I do not take kindly to threats.  If the Speaker perceives there is an infraction of the rules, then he must act in accordance with his conscience but do not threaten me.
    “Secondly,  and more importantly, this provides an occasion to put into context the entire range of events which form the background to the Speaker's comments, and that is the injudicious, ill considered and intemperate decision by the Speaker to expel Glenys Hanna Martin from the House.  By that single ill considered decision, he derailed the Government's business and he should be ashamed of himself for embarrassing the Government. Instead, he threatens me.
    “The fact is the honour of rising as the Speaker leaves is a tradition of the House not a requirement.  I use the word honour deliberately and I say generally that honour and respect are given to whom honour and respect are due.  If you do not yourself give honour and respect then you are due none.
    “The occasion of the unfair expulsion of Mrs. Hanna Martin from the House has also provided fodder from one commentator after the next.  These Monday morning quarterbacks are the usual suspects for whom the PLP can do nothing right.
    “One commentator said that Mrs. Hanna Martin was using the death of a young man for politics.  How cynical and simple minded.
    “The fact is that the PLP, all political parties, including the FNM and indeed Alvin Smith himself have engaged in forms of dissent, civil disobedience and non violent resistance where they perceived wrongdoing.  What the PLP did was part of that tradition of civil disobedience.  The ignorance of that tradition by the Speaker and the present ruling group allowed them to do what the UBP last did in 1965: to call the police to stop Members of Parliament from speaking.  Alvin Smith now has the dubious distinction heretofore reserved unto former Speaker R. H. Bobby Symonette of the United Bahamian Party of having ordered the police to expel members of parliament.
    “As for the question of rules, where rules are not fairly applied, they must be resisted.  There is no court to which one appeals; this is about power and politics.  Justice here depends on the fairness of the majority and how they exercise power.  Clearly, all sense of proportionality was lost on the Speaker and the ruling group last week.  Apartheid in South Africa was set up by laws and rules.  If we had listened to the critics then, Apartheid would have been left in place.  Slavery was also set up by laws and rules.  If we had listened to these same critics, slavery would still exist.
    “I intend to continue to represent the people of the Fox Hill constituency to the best of my ability; to stand up for my principles and to work on behalf of the PLP; just as Alvin Smith wants to do justice for the people of North Eleuthera.”
 
 

GLENYS RETURNS TO THE HOUSE

    Glenys Hanna Martin, the MP for Englerston was wrongly excluded by the Speaker of the House of Assembly last week because of a bad decision he made to prevent her from speaking about the death of 15-year-old Michael Knowles in police custody.  The policy say that the boy died by his own hand.  See our editorial of last week on the subject.  The House on Thursday 11th June passed a resolution expelling Mrs. Martin for two days, even though the Speaker had originally suspended her for two days. That means she was suspended twice for two days and was prevented from being in the House for three days.
    All of it was unfair but there was nothing that could be done but protest.  The press went into overdrive criticizing the PLP but essentially, it was silly commentary from what Fred Mitchell later called the usual suspects.  The youth arm of the PLP, the Progressive Young Liberals, issued a statement in support of Mrs. Hanna Martin's invervention.
    Mrs. Hanna Martin returned to the House on Wednesday 10th June and she and Minister of Education Carl Bethel were captured in this Peter Ramsay photo.
 
 

MALCOLM ADDERLEY ON THE BUDGET

    Last week, if you looked carefully at the picture we displayed at the PLP’s rally, you will see from the back a familiar body and head.  It is that of PLP MP Malcolm Adderley being embraced at the PLP's meeting held at Gambier House.  Mr. Adderley was called to the stage but he indicated that because of recent surgery, he would not be addressing the crowd.  The crowd enthusiastically responded to his presence there.  This week, if you look on the PLP’s website myplp.com you will find the address of Malcolm Adderley PLP Elizabeth on the website.  This is a remarkable event, considering what has transpired between the party and Mr. Adderley over the past two years.
    Mr. Adderley’s was a comprehensive address that reviewed his work on the banking committee and the reform he asked for there to be in the last administration from 2002-07.  He urged the parties to stop finger pointing and work together to resolve the problems on the economy.  He defended Cynthia Pratt and the now National Security Minister against personal blame for the crime situation.  He reviewed his work on legal aid when he formed the Bahamas Law Guild in the 1980s.  He called for a joint position on lotteries in The Bahamas, urging a change in the law.  You may click here for his full address.
 
 

SHADOW MINISTER’S QUESTIONS ON CG HOME IN ATLANTA

    Speaking on the Budget debate in the House of Assembly late Monday evening 8th June, Fred Mitchell, MP for Fox Hill and Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs asked pointed questions of the government about the purchase of a home for the new Consul General in Atlanta.
     Mr. Mitchell said that the PLP had no issue with the purchase of a house for the CG in Atlanta but the house was a public house not a private one.  He said that the house should therefore be appropriate for the use of Bahamian diplomats.  He pointed out that most diplomats homes are in a particular area of Atlanta.  He asked whether the government was satisfied about the expenditure on the home some half a million dollars and another half a million dollars reportedly to repair the home to make it liveable and where the home was located.  He asked the minister to say where the home was and whether or not he was satisfied about the expenditure on the home.
    It was one of a range of issues in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade covered by Mr. Mitchell and included:

The BIS photo by Peter Ramsay shows Mr. Mitchell addressing the House
 
 

THE FOREIGN MINISTER SPEAKS
    Brent Symonette, the Foreign Minister, spoke in the House of Assembly for the first time since last year’s budget debate.  He spoke for just about one hour and sought to say what the policy of the government was in foreign affairs.  Essentially, he continued the blueprints settled by the PLP before it left office.  He did not address the lack of information being made available to the public on foreign affairs.  He sought to clear up the purchase of the home in Atlanta for the new Consul General Kay Smith which was purchased for half a million dollars and some two hundred thousand in repairs.  He defended the purchase on the grounds that it was a foreclosure, valued at one million but which was obtained for half the price.
    Mr. Symonette was responding to comments made by Fred Mitchell, shadow minister of Foreign Affairs who asked whether or not he was satisfied that the house was a proper house.  Mr. Symonette said that when the Consul General has settled down in Atlanta, he would provide an asset register to the House, which will show exactly what is owned in Atlanta.  The explanation may not go far enough and no doubt, Mr. Symonette and the FNM will hear from Mr. Mitchell again on the subject.
    Mr. Symonette also said that the government has decided that instead of an embassy in Brussels, which they announced last year, they will open an embassy in Geneva to service the World Trade Organization.  This is a mistake.  More needs to be said about this.  He said even that has been put on hold due to budgetary constraints.
 
 

MILO BUTLER JR. DIES

    The late Milo Butler Jr. greets former MP George Weech of Bimini when a special lunch was put on for former PLP MPs at Christmas 2008.  Mr. Butler died on Friday 12th June.  He served the PLP as a Senator, as a House Member and as Speaker of the House.  He was the son of the first Bahamian Governor General Sir Milo Butler.  The photo shows him with his son Milo Butler III in the background.  He was 72 at the time of his death.
 
 

PARENTS DAY AWARDS AT SANDILANDS

    On Thursday 11th June Fred Mitchell MP for Fox Hill made a special appearance at the Sandilands Primary School for the presentation of the first, second and third prizes in the essay competition for Parents Day put on for the Fox Hill Constituency by the Member of Parliament.  Pictured with the children who won are Vice Principal Esther Cartwright, Fred Mitchell MP and Angela Neymour, Secretary to the Principal.
 
 

FOX HILL PARENTS DAY PHOTOS

    The Fox Hill Branch of the Progressive Liberal Party held its second annual Parents Day celebration this past week in the Fox Hill Constituency.  The photos by Miguel Taylor show, above left; the Halls, honoured for their leadership in the Church of God on Bernard Road; above centre, former MP Frank and Clementina Edgecombe, honoured for their many contributions to the community; and above right, Fox Hill MP Fred Mitchell receives a presentation from Deidre Rolle, Branch Secretary.
 
 

LAST STAND IN THE TURKS AND CAICOS
    The events in our neighbour Turks and Caicos Islands are moving fast and furious.  The British are unmoved, even as they themselves are involved in a nasty scandal.  Former Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell MP speaking in the House on the Budget Debate on Monday 8th June called for a statement to be made by The Bahamas government on what it intends to do to help the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands whose democratic institutions are in danger of being suspended by the British in approximately three weeks time.
    Mr. Mitchell said: “There needs to be an update from The Bahamas government on the Turks and Caicos Islands. What has the government done since they joined the Caricom statement in support of the continuance of the democratic institutions?  What has Caricom done now that the report of the Commission of Inquiry in the Turks has been sent to the British governor there?”
     Mr. Mitchell said he believed that there was a need to make an appeal directly to the British government to change their position on the suspension of the democratic institutions in the Turks and Caicos particularly in light of the events in London where its own [British] institutions are under severe scrutiny by its public but the response has not been to call the equivalent of a state of emergency and suspend its Parliament.
     Mr. Mitchell said that the events in London have led to the resignation of several Cabinet ministers but their democracy had not been suspended. Instead, the institutions are made to work to solve the problem, he said.
    Mr. Mitchell added that the PLP believed that just as the British as the colonial ruler had the responsibility to help with the economic development of the Turks and Caicos, it had a responsibility for its political development and should assist in bringing an all party solution to the country instead of seeking to suspend its institutions.
    Mr. Mitchell said that the PLP’s position should not be confused with supporting corruption. He said that the PLP does not support corruption but it does believe that the democratic institutions should be preserved in the islands.
    In the meantime,  the Premier of the Turks Galmo Williams issued his own statement calling for elections.  The Governor Gordon Wetherell said that he would not accept the call and that things would remain the same until the suspension of the constitution in response to the findings of the Commission of Inquiry’s recommendations.  Here is Mr. Williams' full statement:
    “My fellow Turks and Caicos Islanders, pursuant to Article 55(1) of the Turks and Caicos Islands Constitution Order 2006, I have today advise His Excellency the Governor to prorogue the House of Assembly effective August 21st, 2009, and to dissolve the House of Assembly pursuant to Article 55(2) of the Constitution on October 1st, 2009 and set October 22nd 2009 as the date for the next General Elections.
     “I understand that setting a date for elections in October may seem far off, but I assure you that this was only done so as to ensure that new laws governing political parties, funding of election campaigns and laws governing elections generally, are in place before these elections are held.
     “In my meeting this morning with His Excellency, the Governor, I have asked him to request that the United Kingdom Government provide us assistance in drafting these bits of legislation and setting up these important institutions so that we could go into these elections with these new pieces of legislation and new institutions in effect.
     “His Excellency the Governor has indicated that he shall have to consult with his bosses in London before he accedes to this advice, and I urge him to make every effort to ensure that a speedy reply is made.
     “Rest assured that this move is in the best interest of democracy in our country as it is my view that anyone who hopes to govern this land should first face the people in an elections campaign and seek and receive their mandate to govern.
     “I thank you for your support, and pray God’s blessings on our Turks and Caicos Islands .”
 
 

LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Eldin A. Ferguson Jr. Dies
My Hero, My Friend, My Mentor, My Teacher, the greatest and most brilliant man I ever knew, the man who had everything in the world that was most important except for riches.

My Father Eldin A. Ferguson, Jr. died on June 9th 2009 of a Massive Heart attack in his sleep.  A part of me died with him and a part of me has come alive because of his Death.  My father did not fight death, he looked death in the face, and I shall do the same for the rest of my life.

WE ARE BUT DUST AND TO DUST WE SHALL RETURN!
Erin A. Ferguson

See our piece below - Ed.
 
 

IN PASSING
Queens Honours
Special congratulations to outstanding Bahamians George Cox and Lowell Mortimer, both of whom are featured on this year's prestigious Queens Honours List.  Mr. Cox, an engineer and Mr. Mortimer an attorney-at-law are now elevated to the status of Officers of of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, OBE.

Pasadena Wedding

Fred Mitchell MP for Fox Hill attended the wedding of Troy Johnson, music producer, and Aziza Harris.  The new Mrs. Johnson is the daughter of Antioch College classmates of Mr. Mitchell.  Mr. Mitchell graduated from Antioch in Yellow Springs, Ohio in 1974.  Louis Harris is an insurance broker in Pasadena, California and his wife, another classmate, is a speech pathologist, also in Pasadena, California.  The Harrisses have visited The Bahamas with their children several times.  Aziza was engaged to Troy in The Bahamas.  The wedding took place on Saturday 14th June at the Pasadena City Hall.  The service was conducted by Rev. Yvonne Williams of the Altadena Methodist Church, the pastor of the Harrisses.  The photo shows Mr. Mitchell at far left and from left Pamela Harris, mother of the bride, Aziza Harris Johnson, Troy Johnson, the Bridegroom; and Louis Harris, the father of the bride.

The Minister On Parade

Minister of Labour Dion Foulkes and Minister of Education Carl Bethel joined the head of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) on the Labour Day parade.  The parade was one of two held on Labour Day.  The TUC and the other umbrella union the National Congress of Trade Unions (NCTU) could not agree on one parade.  The photo shows the Ministers with TUC head Obie Ferguson.  BIS photo: Peter Ramsay

Changes At The Telecommunications Union
Bernard Evans has defeated long serving President of the Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union (BCPOU), the union that represents workers at BTC, the telecommunications company; at the Broadcasting Corporation (BCB); and at the Nassau Guardian in elections held on Thursday 11th June.

Graduation At L.W. Young and Dame Doris Johnson
The Classes of 2009 of the L.W. Young Junior High School and the Dame Doris Johnson Senior School that serve the Fox Hill Community have had their graduation exercises.  Graduation took place on Thursday 4th June for L.W. Young and for Dame Doris on Thursday 11th June.  Fred Mitchell MP Fox Hill spoke at the graduations and repeated to them a phrase made famous by Winston Churchill, the wartime British Prime Minister “Never give up!”

Contempt Charges For John Pinder
The Nassau Guardian reports that John Pinder, head of the National Congress of Trade Unions (TUC) and President of the Bahamas Public Services Union is to be brought up for contempt charges in the courts.  He reportedly is to be charged for contempt because he, in making a comment about the ruling of Justice Jon Isaacs in a case involving a dispute in the Airline Airport Allied Workers Union alleged that the judge was activated by bias.

Boys Missing In Andros
It seems that there is a never-ending stream of bad news about children.  After the false news that a five month old was molested and had died from the molestation put the country one edge, and all the news about teachers molesting youngsters at school, now comes the news from Andros that two boys one 5 one 9 are missing after going out crabbing on Thursday 11th June. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force has now joined the search for them

British High Commissioner Visits
Jeremy Creswell, High Commissioner to The Bahamas from London, resident in Jamaica, visited The Bahamas last week.  He paid a courtesy calls on the government and on the Leader of the Opposition.

Eldin Ferguson Dies

He was a PLP all the way.  He was from Fox Hill.  He had a tough life.  But he successfully crafted together a strong family and a business and made his way in The Bahamas and overseas.  It was a struggle.  He married a former beauty queen Sharon Smith.  They had two boys Eldin III and Erin.  He was 57 years old.  His last struggle after packing the boys up with his wife and moving back to Nassau from trying his hand at a Bahamian restaurant in Florida, was a clash with the Greek owners of the Coconuts building, the last restaurant he operated in Nassau.  He lost that battle and was out of the building, but the matter continues in the courts.  His son Erin posted on the web the great admiration that he had for his father whom he described as his hero.  He did so because early on Tuesday 9th June, Eldin Ferguson Jr., the man whom we describe, the friend and contemporary of many of us who were raised in the 1960s died suddenly from a heart attack.  This loss has engendered a great deal of affection.  He is survived by his wife Sharon and children Alicia Ferguson-Ward, Eldri Ferguson, Eldin Ferguson III, Erin Ferguson and his sister, Arabella Ferguson-Cambridge; nephews Derrick Cambridge, Jr., Keino Cambridge; niece, Dericka Cambridge and granddaughters Rinicia Rolle and Keana Ward..  The funeral service will be held at St. Matthew’s Anglican Church on Saturday 20 June at 10 a.m.

Nurses On 5th Day Of Sick Out
The Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham announced in his budget statement to the House of Assembly on Wednesday 28th May that he would not pay the nurses the health insurance that was negotiated for them by the PLP government.  The nurses rejected the Government’s position.  They started a sick out last Monday 8th June.  By Friday 12th June, the sick out was on its fifth day despite the Minister announcing that the public health was being put at risk by the nurses’ actions and that their pay would be cut.



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21st June, 2009
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...BIGGETTY LOUD FAT DUMB AND HAPPY...

AUSTRALIAN JUDGES... THE PM AND THE NURSES...
CHRISTIE BRINGS HOUSE DOWN... BAHAMAS PRESS: INGRAHAM A SELL OUT...
INGRAHAM’S MEN OVER THE TOP... TOMMY TURNQUEST’S MYTH MAKING...
MUSGROVE BACK IN THE SENATE... LYNDEN PINDLING III REGISTERS TO VOTE...
WE BURY OUR FRIEND ELDIN FERGUSON... TRIBUTES TO MILO BUTLER JR....
SEVEN BAHAMIANS GET OAS SCHOLARSHIPS... LETTER TO THE EDITOR...
IN PASSING...
The Official Site of the Progressive Liberal Party... The Official Site of the Free National Movement...
PLPs On The Web... Interesting Places...
Bradley Roberts / PLP Grants Town Bahamas Government Website
Neville Wisdom / PLP Delaporte  Reg & Kit's Bahamas Links
Alfred Sears / PLP Fort Charlotte Bahamians On The Web
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GOVERNOR GENERAL SAYS FAREWELL TO MILO JR.: To his friends he was simply Junior.  He was MB to others.  The latter was the name that his father was called by his father’s contemporaries.  To most, he was simply Milo.  He was the son of a famous man.  He had big shoes to fill.  His father had joined the PLP as one of its first Members of Parliament when the party first sat as a party in the House in 1956.  But Milo senior, later Sir Milo had been in the House before the PLP and was a political figure of note before the PLP in 1956.  In fact, he had been the man to calm the rioters in 1942, who refused to co-operate with the official House inquiry led by Stafford Sands.  Later he, Milo Senior, was thrown out of the House of Assembly at the orders of the Speaker in 1965.  Milo Senior was locked in the bathroom to stop him from speaking on behalf of his people.  Milo Senior ended up being Minister of Agriculture in the first PLP government and then he became the country’s first Bahamian Governor General upon independence in 1973.  So even though Milo Jr. served as Consul General in Miami, Chairman of the Broadcasting Corporation, Member of Parliament for Pinedale and Speaker of the House of Assembly, nothing he did in his lifetime could exceed that of his father’s contribution.  It was a difficult role to fill, being the son of a national hero and carrying his exact name, but he did it with equanimity, with smoothness, an easy personality, and with his integrity intact.  Last week, when he died, the second generation of the name passed into history.  There is a Milo III.  The country awaits his future.  Until then, we extend our condolences to the Butler family on the loss of this public servant.  Our photo of the week by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services is Governor General Arthur Hanna paying his last respects in the lobby of the House of Assembly where Milo Butler Jr. was laid out on Friday 19th June.

COMMENT OF THE WEEK

BIGGETTY LOUD FAT DUMB AND HAPPY
There is no question that the PLP won the day in the Budget Debate.  But in order to get the benefit of that victory, you would have had to have been watching it all the day or most of the day.  While the press at least seemed disposed to providing some balance with extensive coverage of the PLP leader’s remarks, it scarcely paid attention to what PLPs had to say during the debate.  But at least the attention to Perry Christie was something.  What we say though, is the way the whole thing was constructed at the end the day, the country was exposed yet again to the nasty crudeness of its Prime Minister who gave his final address on the budget on Wednesday 17th June.  He just cannot help himself, dumbing down the country with his inelegant rhetoric, his plain pretend stupidity, not actual but calculatedly so, his manipulating the truth to the point of lying habitually, his attack on a judge, the Speaker took no exception based on sub judice.  Ugh!

Yet this is the Prime Minister we have.  Amongst the more potent lies this time in his address is that the FNM learned stop, review and cancel from the PLP.  You know the phrase invented largely in this column to describe the public policy of the FNM since they came to office: “Stop! Review! Cancel!”  Mr. Ingraham was ballistic over it, claiming that the PLP invented the doctrine and that the FNM had learned from the PLP while it was in office.  He is a plain out and out no good liar for saying that.  This is ex post facto patching up if you have ever seen it.  It took him two years and two months to come up with this lie to seek to discredit the PLP.  The point is that “Stop! Review! And Cancel!” it has resonance in the country.  The PLP must continue to say it over and over again.  It is the truth.  But we are not surprised that Hubert Ingraham would try to find a way to blame the PLP.  That is the second part of his public policy: Blame the PLP.

Then there was the bit about the Commissioner of Police.  Jon Isaacs, a Justice of the Supreme Court, against whom the Prime Minister and his colleagues and the Commissioner of Police have a grudge, attacked the Judge.  The reason: the Judge made a decision in which he ruled that based on the uncontroverted evidence in a civil action brought by two defendants accused of murder, the Commissioner and another officer were guilty of tampering with evidence and possibly forging the signature on a witness statement.  The Prime Minister who had earlier said in the House that he would not comment on the case because the matter was on appeal to the Court of Appeal, last week changed his mind.  He launched into a tirade of vituperative rhetoric in which he said the Judge got it wrong and that when the appeal was decided, it will be seen that the Judge got it wrong.  But kudos to the Judge, kudos to the PLP for their stand on this matter.  The result of the decision for the Commissioner of Police is clear.

So this is The Bahamas of Hubert Ingraham now.  Sir Lynden Pindling has been dead since 2000.  Mr. Ingraham has been in charge of this country for most of the past 15 years.  His stamp of crudeness is everywhere to be found.  He has no compunction about sending people home from their work in the public service, their obligations be damned.  He has no feel for the real problems of people.  It is simply whatever is politically expedient.  That is why it is possible for him to lie with such ease.  It means nothing to him to spin one lie after the next.  He calls it changing his mind because of new facts but to us it is quite simply telling lies.

It has gotten to the point where he is unreliable.  There is nothing that he tells you that you can believe.  He has a whole set of co liars that support him in his nonsense.  Remember, it was the PLP’s fault that the straw market was not built for the straw vendors, even though if he had not stopped reviewed and cancelled, the market would have been finished by now.  Remember, it was the PLPs fault that the Cable Beach project was not finished and completed even though he was the one who signed the deal and he was the one who called the investors unreliable and he was the one who was blamed by the investors for their pull out of the funds.  It seems that lying is simply a way of life for Hubert Ingraham.  He is pathological and cannot seem to help it.

We think that the members of his Cabinet ought to think again about whether they want to be a part of a group that is seen as fat dumb and happy simply to sit in Cabinet, that is run by a man who is a pathological political liar.

Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 20th June 2009 up to midnight: 146,847.

Number of hits for the month of June up to Saturday 20th June 2009 up to midnight: 453,453.

Number of hits for the year 2009 up to Saturday 20th June 2009 up to midnight: 5,077,862.
 


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AUSTRALIAN JUDGES
    Now we have heard everything.  According to the visiting High Commissioner to The Bahamas for Australia last week, who did not pay a courtesy call on the PLP while he was in town, he has been asked by the Prime Minister of The Bahamas to provide rent-a-judges from Australia to help The Bahamas reduce the backlog of cases in The Bahamas.  You may remember that we just had a huge heap of trouble from a judge from Australia named John Lyons.  We have just gotten rid of him and now the Prime Minister is asking for another.
    This asking for rent-a-judges is a practice that was started before under the FNM when they brought in a loud mouth fast-talking Australian Judge who started kicking cases out of court in the name of efficiency.  No doubt, this is what Mr. Ingraham proposes again.  The Bar Association should get involved quickly in this matter and say no dice to it.  It is not acceptable.
 
 

THE PM AND THE NURSES
    It appears that maybe, just maybe, our Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham has met his match in the nurses and their leader Cleola Hamilton.  This country that has been in a state of torpor when it comes to standing up for the rights of themselves and their families in the face of the intimidation of Hubert Ingraham has now seen a spark in the Nurses Union.  Mr. Ingraham unilaterally announced in his budget statement that the nurses were not going to get the insurance that they were promised and negotiated for.
    The government just before the weekend went so far as to say that they did not have to honour the nurse’s contract because it was not registered under the Industrial Relations Act.  They quickly had to back off that foolish comment because they knew that the nurses are not playing.  The nurses have been off on sick leave for almost week, reportedly duly supported by sick certificates.  This led to the Attorney General Michael Barnett himself going into court to argue successfully for an order that the nurses go back to work or face contempt of court hearings.  This was ridiculous.  The government’s answer was coercion not negotiation.
    Hubert Ingraham then went to the House and told the nurses go back to work or there will be no talks.  He said if they went back to work, then the government was able to meet with them on Monday 22nd June.  Nothing so far has happened.  It appears that Cleola Hamilton the Nurses Union’s President is resolute, and the nurses are even more resolute than she is.  The Minister of Labour Dion Foulkes is to enter the picture come Monday, assuming the nurses go back to work.
    There were the ritual stories of how the nurse’s actions had crippled the hospital and how the patients were suffering.  That may or may not have been true.  Employers try to make it out to the public that things are worse than they are and at the same time seek to pretend that they can get along just fine on a skeleton crew.  We hope the nurses can go back to work.  But we also hope that they stick to their guns on the question of the insurance.  The insurance is vital and the government should find the money.  It is as simple as that.  We wish Cleola Hamilton and her nurses the best in their struggle for justice.
 
 

CHRISTIE BRINGS HOUSE DOWN

    In wrapping up the PLP's contribution to the 2009 Budget Debate, PLP Leader the Rt. Hon. Perry G. Christie urged the Free National Movement Government to reconsider its approach to the many problems facing this country by putting the concerns of Bahamians first.  The former Prime Minister told the government very bluntly that they are in need of help and that they should be wise to seek and accept it all sides.
    Mr. Christie even offered a simple solution to Mr. Ingraham, that the Government itself could insure the Nurses in the interim.  Mr. Christie chastised the Prime Minister for his “astounding” refusal to address the Nurses outstanding issues.  “You cannot treat people in a dismissive way simply because you have the power.”  You may click here for Mr. Christie's address from www.myplp.com.
 
 

BAHAMAS PRESS: INGRAHAM A SELL OUT
    We have always had doubts about the commitment of Hubert Ingraham to the principles of loyalty, fidelity and faithfulness to a cause.  He has always seemed to us to be a man so entirely pragmatic as to be devoid of any ideology, philosophical beliefs or moral principles from which he will not deviate.  At the time of his departure from the PLP, we thought that he had been done a bad turn.  In the context of the time, he represented a voice for dissent, which ought to have been heard and acknowledged.  The reaction of the then Prime Minister Lynden Pindling was immediate and direct.  Hubert Ingraham had to go.  That decision has led to the creation of the albatross that is around the necks of the Bahamian people today.  He is a vicious, ungrateful, insecure lout of a Prime Minister and should be voted of office at the earliest opportunity.  The country should not have another five years of this kind of pain inflicted upon it.
    The website bahamaspress.com has now uncovered a document that gives a window into the conduct of Hubert Ingraham.  It shows that even as he was subscribing to the principles of fidelity and loyalty in the Pindling cabinet, he was being disloyal.  He was writing the American government to find a leg up on the group and the men under whom he served.   You may read the evidence for yourself, but this is our Prime Minister.  What a great shame and disgrace!
    On September 21st, 1983, Hubert Ingraham (then a Minister in the Pindling government) wrote Andrew Antippas, US Deputy Chief of Missions at the US Embassy in Nassau as follows:






INGRAHAM’S MEN OVER THE TOP
    Now we have heard it all.  Desmond Bannister who is usually known for being sober of tongue has caught the disease of conceit that infects Hubert Ingraham and the FNM.  Mr. Bannister in making his contribution to the debate on the budget, instead of sticking to the facts tried to be propagandist.  He like the other FNM ideologues who venture into matters where angels seldom tread went over the top in his remarks.  Mr. Bannister claimed that the PLP in taking up the mantra of “Stop! Review! And Cancel!” were like Hitler’s propagandists.  In other words, he was comparing the PLP to Hitler.
    Perry Christie, the Leader of the Opposition immediately responded, saying that Mr. Bannister "stands condemned for such an unacceptable and unaccountably vicious attack" and noting that "It is yet another sad example of the fact that in doing the job of an Opposition, the Progressive Liberal Party and its standard-bearers must expect that no truth is sacred" and that nothing "is exempt from the most destructive, self-serving and vulgar attacks."
    How could Mr. Bannister in all good conscience compare the PLP to Hitler who was perhaps the most odious single figure in modern political history, a man who wiped out six million Jews in Germany as part for his theory of racial superiority?  This is not just over the top; it is not even an intelligent comment.  It is deeply disappointing when you see someone become so FNM in this country that they have to extend themselves into unintelligent commentary to make a point.  The fact is the FNM’s policy is to stop, review and cancel the PLP’s projects.  The other policy is to blame the PLP for everything.  That cannot be denied.  It is not an invention of the PLP.  But you only do discredit to yourself by simply going over the top.
 
 

TOMMY TURNQUEST’S MYTH MAKING
    The FNM’s Minister of National Security continues to misspeak and to state that which is not the truth.  Mr. Turnquest speaking in the House of Assembly on Wednesday 17th June told the House that the PLP caused the problem of prison officers not being able to be regularized because they were promoted without qualifications.  This is a myth that has been debunked so many times one sees why the FNM is not a credible government any more.  Tommy Turnquest knows better and should stop saying these untruths.
    The fact is the PLP met the issue of the prisoner officers unresolved.  Frank Watson, Mr. Turnquest’s predecessor who was the last FNM in the job before Cynthia Pratt of the PLP allowed prison officers who were not yet complete with their training to take up the jobs as acting prison officers because there was a shortage of officers at the prison.  The PLP met the problem and tried to resolve the salary issues before they left office.  There was an FNM ideologue in charge of the Prison Staff Association who refused to conclude the matter and called an illegal strike at the prison.  However, Cynthia Pratt agreed with the association to settle the issue by regularizing the people involved.
    There was also a group of prison officers who were recommended for promotion by the FNM but whose promotions were turned back by the Public Service Commission.  In that case, Fred Mitchell, the Minister for the Public Service and the Chairman of the Commission appointed by the FNM Teresa Butler, worked out a course with the Prison Staff Association that would have qualified all those who successfully completed the course to be promoted.  Others were allowed to join the course that the prison staff association complained had been overlooked.  They successfully completed the course.  Their promotions were revisited and confirmed on 1st May 2007.  It is these latter promotions that Mr. Turnquest said were done for political reasons.  Mr. Turnquest is wrong.  They should simply do what they are supposed to do and settle these issues and not seek to blame the PLP again for something that is of the making of the FNM, not the PLP.
 
 

MUSGROVE BACK IN THE SENATE

    Anthony Musgrove, the FNM Exuma native who is a banker, who lost his seat in the Senate as a result of the challenge to the position by the PLP’s leader of the Opposition Perry Christie, has been reappointed to the senate following the resignation of Kay Smith from the Senate to take up the position of Consul General in Atlanta.  This is one of the rare moments that Hubert Ingraham has actually kept a promise to one of his fallen soldiers.  The new Senator took the oath of office on Friday 18th June.  He is back this time as a full fledged FNM appointment and not one of those that require consultation with the Leader of the Opposition and that is to reflect the balance of the House of Assembly.  The photo of the taking of the oath is by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services.
 
 

LYNDEN PINDLING III REGISTERS TO VOTE

    When his grandfather Sir Lynden O. Pindling, the father of the nation, died in August 2002, he was only 9 years old.  It was the first time that the country actually heard the third generation of the Pindling family speak.  The young Mr. Pindling, son of Lynden Obafemi Pindling (Obie - Lynden O. Pindling Jr.), is now fully of age.  His grandmother Dame Marguerite Pindling took the occasion to accompany her grandson to the office of the Parliamentary Commissioner to register to vote.  The Commissioner Errol Bethel personally greeted Dame Marguerite and her grandson as the younger Pindling continued the tradition of civic involvement started for their family by his late grandfather’s political leadership.
Photo / Peter Ramsay
 
 

WE BURY OUR FRIEND ELDIN FERGUSON

    If the Lord is ever to have mercy on anyone’s soul, we hope that he has mercy on the soul of Eldin Alexander Ferguson.  He was, quite simply, a good man.  He left behind too soon two loving, grown daughters, two wonderful, competent sons; loyal young men, a beautiful wife.  He left behind the love and admiration of his friends.
    The PLP’s leadership, the party that he served from behind the scenes turned out in full force.  Its leader Perry Christie led the party’s mourners.  Members of the church that he helped to build in Freeport, the Anglican Church of the Ascension came down in large numbers including the Archdeacon Cornell Moss and the choir, former Minister of Health Marcus Bethel also came.  Al Dillette, the childhood friend gave a moving tribute, speaking of their time together at the ‘Moonglow’ in Fox Hill.
    We hope that in the great beyond there is joy in heaven that Eldin is there.  We think that his sons, wife, and daughters did a credible job on their father’s behalf in the funeral as they adjust to his death.  The photos of the funeral, which took place at his home church of St. Matthews in Nassau on Saturday 20th June, are by Peter Ramsay.  Wife Sharon, daughters Alicia and Eldri and two sons Eldin III and Erin survive him.  He was buried in St. Margaret’s Church cemetery.



 
 

TRIBUTES TO MILO BUTLER JR.

    Milo Butler Jr., the former Speaker of the House of Assembly will be buried in the Eastern Cemetery in New Providence following a religious rite at the Christ Church Cathedral in Nassau on Monday 22nd June.  Mr. Butler was 72 years old when he died on Friday 12th June.
    PLP Chair Glenys Hanna Martin issued a statement on behalf of the PLP for the man who served in the House of Assembly as a PLP representative from 1977 to 1992.  On Friday 19th June, he was laid out in the lobby of the House of Assembly.  The House met upstairs and paid tribute to him.
    The Governor General (see photo of the week) and Government officials paid their respects to the family.  Leader of the Opposition Perry Christie was amongst those greeting the family.  The photo is by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services.  The PLP Chair’s statement follows:
    “The Progressive Liberal Party mourns the loss of Milo B. Butler Jr., a comrade and brother in the political struggle which has culminated in the creation of a modern Bahamas.
    “His service to his country and to his party has been one of committed and exemplary involvement.
    “He served as National Chairman of the Progressive Liberal Party, as Member of Parliament for the Pinedale constituency and as Speaker of the House of Assembly. He also served as Chairman on a number of Public Boards.
    “He hailed from a distinguished Bahamian family whose patriarch was a political champion and National Hero, his father, Sir Milo Bolton Butler, Sr. Clearly this provided him with the grounding sufficient to understand the mandate of public service and the necessity of the pursuit of justice and freedom in our Bahamaland.
    “Although he was quiet in his demeanour, he was strong and uncompromising in his involvement at every level, respected by all for his commitment to principle and his insistence on integrity as an absolute standard for all those who pursued public life. He displayed in all that he did and in every community that he touched a quiet respect for his fellow man and an unwavering love of his country. For this, he is remembered as a guiding spirit to many who remain in public life and as an example for all those who seek to enter the political arena.
    “We in the Progressive Liberal Party salute the wonderful life of Milo Butler, Jr. a fine Bahamian son and political warrior.”
 
 

SEVEN BAHAMIANS GET OAS SCHOLARSHIPS

    Seven Bahamians received Organization of American States scholarships to pursue studies aimed at further developing The Bahamas.
    Deputy Prime Minister and Minster of Foreign Affairs the Hon Brent Symonette presented the recipients with their certificates during a ceremony at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on June 18. OAS representative Yvette Treco assisted him.
    The OAS scholarship recipients in the graduate programme are Marcellus Taylor, education and planning; Latoya Johnson, international trade and finance; Indira Adderley, management science; Kenton Burrows, geographic information systems; and Jason Carey, molecular biology. Students in the undergraduate programme are Mikhail Bullard, criminology and political economics; and Lesvie Clare, international hospitality and tourism.
    The candidates had between January and March this year to apply online to the OAS, which submitted the applications to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A selection committee met with and interviewed the candidates and the scholarships were granted based on their area of study. The OAS Undergraduate and Graduate Scholarship Award programmes date back to 1958. It is financed by the governments of member states as a means of contributing to their integral development.
    The Bahamas became a member of the OAS on March 3, 1982 and since 1984, seventy-nine Bahamians have been awarded scholarships.
Organization of American States scholarship award winners are pictured with officials Thursday. From left, front row, are Marcellus Taylor, recipient; Azaria Clare, representing recipient Lesvie Clare; Latoya Johnson, recipient; Indira Adderley, recipient; Yvette Treco, OAS representative; Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs the Hon Brent Symonette; Dr Patricia Rodgers, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Angela Bullard representing recipient Mikhail Bullard; and Kenton Burrows, recipient. BIS photo.
 
 

LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Justice Jon Isaacs on Police Conduct
As it relates to the comments made by Justice Jon Isaacs.  To those who know, the matter may be less an issue of police misconduct than it is of witness tampering; tampering abetted by attorneys.  It is not the first time that it has happened where eyewitnesses recant with affidavits that are delivered to the AG's office.  Affidavits which are facilitated by defence attorneys.  In this case, I think the probability tends more that way than the other. I may be wrong on this one but I doubt it.
Name withheld

That may well be the case and we think that the decision is unusual, but what is clear is that the Crown did not take the matter seriously and made no obvious effort to provide affidavit evidence to contradict the evidence of the applicants in the matter.  Thus the judge had only the evidence before him on which to decide.  That is shocking negligence on the part of the Crown.
Editor
 
 

IN PASSING
Turks And Caicos Islands Revisited
You will know that the official position of the Government of The Bahamas and the Progressive Liberal Party with regard to events in the Turks and Caicos Islands is that the British government should not interrupt the organs of democratic governance in the Turks as a result of the publication of the report of the Commission of Inquiry.  You also know that the British have ignored every entreaty on the subject even as their own home government has lost the moral authority to govern as a result of scandals at home.  Part of the reason why the British feel so confident is a weak Opposition party in the Turks that supports the intervention of the British because they cannot win a general election if it were called today.  A letter writer in the Turks published a work in which she said that Fred Mitchell’s request on behalf of the PLP for the British not to intervene is denied.  She claimed that the only way for things to be set right is for the British to step in and save the situation.  The writer misses the point entirely about the need to craft for their own a future based on a Turks and Caicos Islands solution.

Bermuda Is Next
Premier Ewart Brown of the PLP in Bermuda survived a vote of no confidence in the Bermuda Parliament on Friday 19th June 22 votes to 11 votes.  No PLPs voted for the resolution although members of parliament from the PLP including former Premiers Jennifer Smith and Alex Scott denounced the actions of the Premier for allowing in the four Uyghurs of China from the Guantanamo Base prison from the United States.  Mr. Brown decided on his own without consultation with his Cabinet to allow the men in at the request of the United States.  The British are now put out as well because they consider that his action breached Article 62 of the Constitution of Bermuda, which says that the British are responsible for Foreign Affairs, Defence and National Security.  Mr. Brown apologized to the country for acting on his own but he said it was the right thing to do.  It is not known whether he will survive as Premier following a convention of the PLP.  In any event, the British government is reported to have their eye on Mr. Brown and are openly saying that now that they have taken care of Michael Misick in the Turks and Caicos, Mr. Brown in Bermuda is next.  One PLP Minister resigned as a result of Mr. Brown’s decision but he did not support the vote of no confidence.

Paul Moss Speaks
It is clear that come hell or high water Paul Moss intends to run in the next election in the St. Cecilia seat of Cynthia Pratt of the PLP.  Mrs. Pratt has said that she does not intend to run again in the next election.  Mr. Moss has been nursing the seat even as Mrs. Pratt has reportedly opposed his nomination and his tactics.  According to The Tribune of Saturday 20th June, there has been some talk in the PLP of sending him into another seat.  That would be a good idea, really, because it would allow the party to put a well-financed candidate with a high profile into a marginal seat and save a safe seat for someone else who might be of greater priority to get elected.  Mr. Moss is having none of that if the reports in The Tribune are true.  He told The Tribune that he would run in St. Cecelia even if he does not get the PLP’s nomination.  Take that!

Dame Marguerite Visits The Fergusons

Dame Marguerite Pindling visited the home of the late Eldin Ferguson Jr. to offer condolences to the widow of Mr. Ferguson Sharon and their two sons Eldin III and Erin.  The photo was taken on Thursday 19th June by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services.

Archbishop Gomez Confirms

Archbishop Drexel Gomez (retired) administered the Sacrament of confirmation Sunday morning 14 June at Christ Church Cathedral.  Confirmation is a rite in which one expresses a mature commitment to Christ and receives strength by the indwelling of the Holy sprit through prayer and the laying on of hands by a Bishop.
Photo / Peter Ramsay
 

Correction
In the 7th June edition of this column we reported that the anniversary of the PLP first sitting in Parliament as a party came on the 8th June, with them having taken their seats on that date in 1956.  That was incorrect.  In fact, the general election began on that date in 1956 and it was only the members for New Providence that were elected on that day.  The elections in the islands took place over a number of weeks and not on one day as they are now.  The election period ended in July. House members did not take their seats until November of that year.



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28th June, 2009
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...THE CHOICE OF THE PLP ESTABLISHMENT...

SURVEY QUESTIONS... CUBA DENIES INTERFERENCE...
ALLYSON GIBSON ADDRESSES THE SENATE... MICHAEL HALKITIS ON THE DANGERS OF BORROWING...
JEROME SAYS NO TO REGINALD FERGUSON... WATSON BEGINS INGRAHAM’S CAMPAIGN...
WATSON ON JOBS FOR FNMS... LYNDEN PINDLING III REGISTERS TO VOTE...
MITCHELL SET RECORD STRAIGHT ON PRISON... MILO BUTLER JR. IS BURIED...
UBP’S PETER CHRISTIE ATTACKS PLP’S BRAVE DAVIS... LIFE AFTER SIR BURTON HALL...
MELANIE GRIFFIN DEMANDS ACTION ON CHILD PROTECTION... IN PASSING...
The Official Site of the Progressive Liberal Party... The Official Site of the Free National Movement...
PLPs On The Web... Interesting Places...
Bradley Roberts / PLP Grants Town Bahamas Government Website
Neville Wisdom / PLP Delaporte  Reg & Kit's Bahamas Links
Alfred Sears / PLP Fort Charlotte Bahamians On The Web
Melanie Griffin / PLP Yamacraw Bahamian Cycling News
John Carey / PLP Carmichael FredMitchellUncensored.Com ARCHIVES...
Grand Bahama PLP
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MICHAEL JACKSON DIES: Not since the death of Diana, the Princess of Wales has there been such wall to wall coverage of someone in death.  The death of the musician and entertainer Michael Jackson shocked so many.  When he passed way unexpectedly on Thursday 25th June, he became even larger in death than he was in life.  His end was tragic.  Here was a man who spent his entire life seeking to please other people.  He was rich.  He was famous.  He was talented, but all the commentators talked about the inner sadness, the troubled mind that he was, the strange man that he was.  Many talked about his inner loneliness, the inability to trust anyone, how his childhood had been robbed from him.  It goes to show that wealth and fame is not all that it is cracked up to be.  For a couple of generations, even down to the very young today, Michael Jackson loomed large.  His music is in our collective memory, more than the Beatles, more than Elvis.  He was the King of Pop.  And so today, we join the rest of the world as we salute a genius who is gone tragically and too soon with Michael Jackson as our photo of the week.  May he rest in peace!

COMMENT OF THE WEEK

THE CHOICE OF THE PLP ESTABLISHMENT
The issue of who will lead the PLP in the 2012 General Election has been joined.  The Tribune’s Paul Turnquest has been soliciting and writing story after story about where the PLP is in terms of its choice for leadership.  The major headline of The Tribune on Thursday 24th June was a quote attributed to now Party leader Perry Christie ‘I WILL LEAD THE PLP IN 2012’.  With that single headline, all of the equivocation up to now by Mr. Christie that there was a possibility of transitioning to new leadership before the next election went out of the window.  The next day there was a story by Paul Turnquest again which said that Mr. Christie’s so far unknown challengers were unmoved by what he had said.

It is a bit curious how all of this has come about in the past week.  It has no doubt been bubbling below the surface for months as the party moves toward its first convention since February 2008.  The party at that time with a wink and nod without a contest and without putting the question of the responsibility or the loss in 2007 squarely before delegates reaffirmed Mr. Christie’s leadership.  At the time, there seemed the promise that it was too soon to dump the man who had brought the party back into government after ten years, even though he ran in 2007 an unfocused and irresolute campaign.  There was an implicit suggestion that after a period of mature reflection, a strategy for transition would be employed.

Words have been spoken about transition but up to last week, no clear strategy had emerged.  In fact, what some have argued is that the strategy that has always worked for Mr. Christie is being employed: stall, delay, defer, and fetch to the finish line when it will be too late to do anything about it.  The closest talk of transition was again speculative stories in the press, which suggested that once the Deputy Leadership race was decided following Cynthia Pratt’s demitting office, Mr. Christie would look to that person to determine that person’s fitness to succeed him as leader.  Now even that slight possibility of a transition has been shut with the completeness of the headline in The Tribune and the added quote that anyone who seeks to run against him is engaging in “an exercise in futility”.

Many PLPs remember the 1997 campaign when Sir Lynden O. Pindling could not be persuaded that he needed to retire and let someone else head the party.  He was its best asset and at the same time its worst demerit.  The country went with Ingraham in part because the PLP had not shown a new face.  That new face was shown in 2002 when Mr. Christie emerged as its leader.  Now the PLP faces the same dilemma and many argue it has not drawn any lesson from the 1997 defeat or the 2007 defeat.  An electorate, as distinct from your party, in a defeat sometimes seeks to send you a message which (nothing personal) it is important to grasp, that is may be time to try something new.  The failure to get that message could lead in the direction of going down in flames again in 2012.

The follow up story in Tribune from the unnamed sources again said it was not a question of whether or not Mr. Christie could be defeated within the PLP but whether or not he can defeat Mr. Ingraham.  The story suggested that such an eventuality is counterintuitive in the face of the evidence of an insurgent Hubert Ingraham defeating an incumbent PLP in 2007.  And now an insurgent PLP without any financial resources or access to those resources facing an incumbent Hubert Ingraham with not only private resources but with the Government’s machinery behind him.

Mr. Ingraham is using the instruments of the state to pursue PLP oriented businessmen.  He is using intimidation of the government machinery to stop every PLP in their tracks, firing PLPs from the service and ensuring that PLP MPs have no resources to fight back.  There does not even seem to be a plan in evidence to fight back against this Ingraham strategy.

There comes a point in time in the lives of all politicians when they have to know when it is time to hang up their hat.  You can go at a point when people are saying please don’t go, or you could go after an ignominious defeat and people are telling you, in the name of God go now.

Within the PLP, Mr. Christie is greeted with warm applause.  Those who are perceived as challengers to his leadership are shouted down and abused.  Mr. Christie is therefore right when he said in an earlier interview with The Tribune that it will take courage to run against him.  It is unlikely in the face of such venom that anyone will challenge for the leadership at its convention in 2009.  But some argue it is always the mark of good leadership to know when enough is enough and seek despite the fear of transition to try something new.

As the PLP’s leaders walked with the FNM following the funeral of the late Milo Butler, there was a chorus of cries “PLP! All the way!”  This is indicative to some of the party’s popularity which some argue means that no matter how the party is organized in 2012, with people so fed up with the government, the PLP does not need any other strategy but patience and waiting in order to get back into government.

The Tribune also reports that a survey is being done about the candidates for the Deputy Leadership race.  Amongst the questions being asked is whether people would vote for Perry Christie be PLP leader again and whether or not he should step down.  It did not say who is sponsoring the survey but it is believed to be one of the candidates in the race.  Mr. Turnquest, the writer, puts those down as Dr. B.J. Nottage, Obie Wilchcombe, Cynthia Pratt, Philip Davis and Jerome Fitzgerald.

It is also interesting to many that it is the much reviled Tribune, the mouthpiece of the enemy that is letting PLPs know what is happening in their own party’s future not within the PLP itself or its public relations instruments.

The judgment of the country is now that notwithstanding all that you hear to the contrary, the establishment of the PLP still stands with Perry Christie and that means in 2012, the race looks right now to be round three Hubert Ingraham vs. Perry Christie.

Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 27th June 2009 up to midnight: 133,234.

Number of hits for the month of June up to Saturday 27th June 2009 at midnight: 597,276.

Number of hits for the year 2009 up to Saturday 27th June 2009 at midnight: 5,211,096.
 


CONTACT US AT E-MAIL:placid_point@yahoo.com

SURVEY QUESTIONS
    The Tribune published a story on Tuesday 23rd June in which it said that one of the candidates for the Deputy Leadership Race of the PLP had initiated a survey of the public on the question of who they would support for Deputy Leader.  Here are some of the questions the paper said appeared on the survey:

    This column pointed out that the swirl of public point and counterpoint on this leadership issue is a result of the failure of the PLP to put in place a credible internal process on the question of the future of their party.  Because there is no credible internal process the whole thing is playing itself out in front of the country. In the end, the stubbornness on this issue, demonstrated by the reported about face on a discussion of the Greenburg report [a survey commissioned in 2009 about why the party lost and suggesting a way forward] by the party, will also mean that in the end the country will have to resolve any leadership issues, if indeed there are any.
 
 

CUBA DENIES INTERFERENCE
    The Tribune reported in its Tuesday edition of the paper that the Cuban Embassy in Nassau has denied that Cuba has any plan to sabotage the nurses’ industrial action in The Bahamas by assisting the government to replace nurses on sickout.  The Embassy said that Cuba does not interfere in the internal affairs of The Bahamas.  The Cuban authorities released the story in response to an article that appeared in The Punch saying that the Cubans were going to help the Government sabotage the ongoing industrial action of the nurses.  The nurses have been engaged in industrial action, mainly a sick out to pressure the government to pay for the health insurance of the nurses.  Cleola Hamilton, Nurses Union president went to court last week to seek to get an injunction lifted on the grounds that the statements on which the government relied to get the injunction against the nurses were hearsay (click here for last week’s story).  It appears that Mrs. Hamilton continues to have the full support of the nurses and certainly this column in her fight for justice for the nurses.
 
 

ALLYSON GIBSON ADDRESSES THE SENATE

    In a wide-ranging Budget address, the Opposition’s leader in the Senate and the author of the Swift Justice programme attacked the FNM for incompetence and ineptitude.  Mrs. Allyson Gibson laid out her vision for 2020 in The Bahamas and also how the issue of the backlog of cases in the courts could be addressed.  You may click here for the full address.
 
 

MICHAEL HALKITIS ON THE DANGERS OF BORROWING

    The Senate debate on the budget is complete and now the budget bills move on to be assented to by the Governor General.  Michael Halkitis speaking in the Senate on the bills on Thursday 25th June counted up all the borrowing that the Ingraham administration has done since it came back to office in 2007.  The amount is staggering: one billion dollars if you count the monies they will have to borrow to get us through the upcoming year.  That is simply staggering.  You can read it all by clicking here for the Senator’s full address.
 
 

JEROME SAYS NO TO REGINALD FERGUSON

    Finally, it has been said publicly by a PLP politician, the choice of Reginald Ferguson for Commissioner of Police was wrong.  Speaking in the Senate on the budget bills on Friday 26th June, Senator Jerome Fitzgerald attacked the choice of Commissioner of Police.  Mr. Fitzgerald said that the government had sent two young qualified officers away to Canada for training with the expectation that within a year one them would succeed to the top job.  He said that instead Mr. Ferguson had been appointed.  He argued that its simply makes no sense for a 64 year old man to be leading the Force.  You may click here for the full address.  Mr. Fitzgerald also attacked the government over the choice of the container port on Arawak Cay saying that the studies show that the government is choosing the wrong spot.
 
 

WATSON BEGINS INGRAHAM’S CAMPAIGN
    Those of us who read this week the comments of Frank Watson the FNM former Deputy Prime Minister, who is now in charge of the Airport Authority, must have said here is déjà vu all over again.  You will remember that it was Mr. Watson who cut the legs out from under Tommy Turnquest when he was leading the FNM prior to Hubert Ingraham’s return to the FNM in 2006.  Mr. Watson was heard on the Jones and Company radio programme in that year saying that while he liked Tommy, the fact is Mr. Turnquest was ineffective and simply could not cut it as leader of the FNM.  He began a relentless draft campaign for Mr. Ingraham to come back.  He was successful and Mr. Ingraham came back and defeated the PLP in 2007.
    Now Mr. Waatson is starting the drum beat all over again.  This follows Mr. Ingraham’s own statement in the House when he was wrapping up the debate on the Budget.  Mr. Ingraham, speaking to Perry Christie told him “I ga be right here the next time”.  We take that to mean that he intends to run again.  There was never any doubt in our minds that this is what he intended to do.  He intends to stay on and on as long as he can manipulate the system to allow it.  Now that Frank Watson in The Tribune of June is saying that there are FNMs who are praying that Mr. Ingraham stays on for another term, it is official.
 
 

WATSON ON JOBS FOR FNMS
    Blaming the PLP for everything is the national pastime of the FNM.  The Tribune spoke to Frank Watson, the former FNM Deputy Prime Minister and now chairman of the Airport Authority.  Mr. Watson was defending the FNM’s position (according to him) not to grant jobs to FNM supporters for politics sake.  He said that the FNM could not be like the PLP when it was in office hiring PLPs and putting them into consultancies.  This is incredible.  The authors of the consultancies game was the FNM.
    Right now, the FNM government is hiring FNM supporters at a faster clip in the Department of Environmental Health on contract than at any other time in our history.  These contractors then hire FNM supporters.  This is done just so they can say as Mr. Watson is now saying that the government is not hiring FNM supporters.  Everyone knows that the FNM are the experts at this.  They are also experts on the ability to lie right in front of your face; and without blinking an eyelid.
 
 

MITCHELL SET RECORD STRAIGHT ON PRISON
    Fred Mitchell MP for Fox Hill was clearly incensed by the comments of Tommy Turnquest, the Minister of National Security with regard to the prison.  The FNM and their propagandists are constantly spinning stories blaming the PLP for one thing or another that is really the fault of the FNM.  This was the story according to Mr. Mitchell with regard to the Minister’s comments in the House on the budget debate on the hiring and promotion of prison officers.  Mr. Mitchell who was out of the country at the time of the Minister’s statement said that he had personally confronted the Minister on the matter upon his return.  Here is what Mr. Mitchell said in his own words:
    “In my absence from the House of Assembly in the latter stages of the Budget debate, the Minister of National Security made certain assertions about the PLP and its culpability for the state of the prison promotions in which the government now finds itself.  In another context, I have described this as myth making.  I confronted the Minister with this personally on Friday 19th June outside the House of Assembly upon my return to the country to ask him to cease and desist blaming the PLP for a situation which was entirely FNM created at the prison and one which we tried to settle before we left office.
     “My recollection is that there were three sets of issues with regard to the prison promotions.  The first was that during the term of Frank Watson, the Minister of National security and then Deputy Prime Minister, prison officer trainees had their training cut short by executive order and they were made acting prison officers due to a shortage of manpower in the prison.  When we came to office in 2002, we met this untenable and unsatisfactory situation.  The Public Service Commission, then headed by an FNM appointee, refused to confirm the officers because their training was not complete.  They were unable to get the salary that was due to them as officers as a result of that issue being unresolved.
     “We were also faced with a second set of officers who were recommended for promotions by the Prison Service.  Half of those recommended for promotions were refused promotions by the FNM appointed Public Service Commission.  The reason given was that they did not fulfil the criterion for promotions laid down by the FNM, which gave academic qualifications as one way to be promoted; and alternatively, years of service.  The criterion had been agreed with by the Prison Staff Association.  Representations were made by the Prison Superintendent who said that there was a morale problem at the prison as a result of the Commission’s actions.  The then Chairman of the Commission Teresa Butler and myself with the then Minister of National Security visited the prison to speak to the affected officers.  It was agreed that a special course would be designed for all those who had not been promoted and that those who were successful in that course, all other things being equal, would be promoted.
     “That course was designed and done.  The Prison Staff Association made representations to me as minister of the public service that several people had been overlooked and requested inclusion of other people to have an opportunity for promotion.  I agreed and this was facilitated.
     “The Minister claimed in the House of Assembly that the PLP hired prison officers for political reasons and promoted them for political reasons and by reason of political affiliation.  That is again myth making and I urge him to cease and desist.
     “From the PLP’s point of view, the only unfortunate event about his whole matter was delay.  The story of the delay is one for my memoirs, not for today’s purposes.  The FNM and their partisans will have much to answer for delay and sabotage of the system.  I add the Minister's own statement in the House of Assembly on this matter at an earlier occasion when he was challenged on these same assertions.  He read into the record the position of the Prison Superintendent on the much FNM reviled promotions of 1st May 2002.
     “According to the Minister’s statement, the Superintendent received a call from the Chairman of the Public Service Commission asking him to publish the promotions.  He said that the Superintendent called the Permanent Secretary of National Security for advice on the matter and was told to proceed to publish the promotions.  The promotions were then published at the prison in the usual way.  How this can then be turned against the officers by the FNM government to lead to the revocation of the promotions is a mystery and I believe unlawful.  The difficulty is the officers did not have the recourses to challenge this in the courts.
     “Thankfully and despite all the bluster of the Minister and his continued myth making this sordid chapter is to be resolved one hopes when the new budget is in place on 1st July.”
 
 

MILO BUTLER JR. IS BURIED

    The official funeral service with all of its pomp and pageantry took place in Nassau at the Anglican Cathedral of Christ Church on Monday 22nd June.  Attending were the Governor General Arthur Hanna and the Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.  The preacher was Rev. Dr. James Moultrie.  He is survived by his wife Rose and his children from two marriages including Milo Butler III.


Top, Milo Butler III with his mother and Butler family members; above: Loretta Butler, niece of Milo Butler Jr. and Minister for Social Development; Perry Christe, Leader of the Opposition; Lynn Holowesko, Senate President and Dame Marguerite Pindling,widow of the late Sir Lynden Pindling... Branville McCartney, Minister for Immigration; Leslie Miller, former Minister of Trade and Sir Arthur Foulkes, DG Bahamas Information Services... Parliamentary pallbearers: Shane Gibson, Glenys Hanna Martin, Alfred Sears, Earl Deveaux, Obie Wilchcombe, Tommy Turnquest... Governor General Arthur Hanna leads the funeral procession. The photos are by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services.
 
 

UBP’S PETER CHRISTIE ATTACKS PLP’S BRAVE DAVIS
    Perry Christie, the PLP’s leader, often says that until lions have authors, the tale of the hunt is told by the hunter.  That is to say that history depends on who writes it.  Philip ‘Brave’ Davis, the MP for Cat Island spoke during the budget debate in the House of Assembly about the case of Adeline Armbrister of Cat Island.  She is now 86 years old.  Mrs. Armbrister was dispossessed of her land by the late Harold Christie in a celebrated case led by Lynden Pindling, Cecil Wallace Whitfield and Arthur Hanna, the leaders of the PLP in 1964.
    The court found that the land that Mrs. Armbrister and her fellows were occupying as farmers was not theirs and they were trespassers and they should move off the land.  They did not comply and were found in contempt and were sent to jail.  The matter was appealed to the Privy Council but the appeal was never heard because the file went missing.  Mr. Davis recalled a resolution by former MP for Cat Island Oscar Johnson in 1968 calling for justice for the women dispossessed.  He called on the those how now own the land, part of a multi million-dollar development in Cat Island, to do something for the women who were dispossessed and their families.  Mrs. Armbrister was in the gallery as he spoke.
    Now Peter Christie, the nephew of the late Sir Harold Christie (H.G. Christie Real Estate) has written a letter to defend his late uncle’s actions.  He claims that Mr. Davis got the facts wrong and that Mr. Davis abused his privilege in the House to defame his uncle.  He said that his Uncle got an order of dispossession because the tenant farmers refused to pay their rent and refused to leave.  He traced the title to a family in Britain and said that his Uncle’s company had bought it from that family and the families who farmed the land were to pay rent in the form of crops.  It was only when they refused that he took actions in the court.  Mr. Christie said they did not have to go to jail; they could have purged their contempt by leaving the land.
    This is fascinating stuff and we thank Mr. Davis for bringing it up.  The Courts of the day were wrong.  Mr. Christie was wrong as the island’s representative to do what he did and the Mr. Christie (Peter) is wrong for his skewed view of history today.  It shows how the UBP and their philosophy and point of view has not changed.  These are the same people who now support the FNM and for whom Hubert Ingraham works so hard.  The letter was published on Wednesday 24th June in The Tribune.
 
 

LIFE AFTER SIR BURTON HALL

    Sir Burton Hall has decided to retire and take up a position as one of the judges on the international tribunal for justice in Yugoslavia.  The court sits in The Hague in the Netherlands.  He succeeds to the position of the previous Caricom judge who is retiring.  Sir Burton who is 62 leaves the Supreme Court bench in August for retirement.  The announcement was made on Thursday 25th June.  This will now allow Hubert Ingraham to further pack the court with his FNM buddies.
    The question is who will succeed Sir Burton as chief justice.  The person who should is the Senior Justice Anita Allen, but given the fact that Mr. Ingraham does not like her husband Algernon, it is unlikely that he will give it to her. Instead, he is likely hand it to Claire Hepburn, who used to be his attorney general and one of those women who supported Mr. Ingraham way back in his Thirds Force days.
    Another candidate may be Michael Barnett, the now Attorney General.  Mr. Barnett has long said his ambition was to be Chief Justice.  He would also get a knighthood, which he also wants as well.  That would mean a fitting height to a career that includes being Bar President, Attorney General and then Chief Justice.
File photo of Sir Burton Hall at the opening of the Supreme Court
 
 

MELANIE GRIFFIN DEMANDS ACTION ON CHILD PROTECTION

    Melanie Griffin, MP, Opposition Spokeswoman on Social Service has issued a news statement calling “absolutely incredible” the FNM Minister of State inability during the recent budget debate, to put forward a plan by the Ministry to address the current overwhelming levels of child abuse in the country today, particularly due to the impact of the economic recession.
    Mrs. Griffin called upon the Minister “to forthwith put in place the following:
    1. National Child Protection Council.  The National Child Protection Council should be mandated and provided with the necessary resources to increase its programmes to educate the public about the high incidences of child abuse and what steps they ought to take to prevent it and report it.
    2. Appointment of a Special Task Force.  Realizing that the workload is too much for the current level of staff in Child Protective Services, the Ministry should activate a Special Task Force to address the high incidences of reported abuse of children.  While this Task Force be led by Child Protective Services, it should comprise of retired social workers, social workers who are awaiting employment in the Ministry, social workers who may be deployed in other government agencies, social workers who are on study leave at the College of The Bahamas and elsewhere.  It should also include personnel in the Urban Renewal Offices and other government agencies involved in the care and protection of children, like the Ministries of Health, Education and the Police.
    3. Bahamas Christian Council.  Enlist the assistance of the Bahamas Christian Council and other religious organizations in reaching into the communities with faith-based initiatives designed to reach families and arrest this current situation.
    4. Business & Other civic organizations.  Enlist the assistance of other business, civic and community-based organizations and associations as a part of this holistic attack to fight back this current surge.”
    Mrs. Griffin said that we “cannot sit back and continue to see the kind of reports we are seeing daily in the media about what is happening with our children and know from the information at our disposal the incredible levels of abuses against our children and just continue to narrate the problem.  Action must be taken and it must be taken now.”
 
 

IN PASSING
Roman Catholic Diocese Celebrates 50 Years

The Roman Catholic archdiocese is celebrating the Church's Golden Jubilee.  The annoucement of the observance was made at a news conference by Archdeacon Patrick Pinder and Fr. Glen Nixon, pictured in this Nassau Guardian photo by Tony. Grant Jr.

Trial Of St. Agnes Rector
The trial of the St. Agnes Rector Archdeacon Ranfurly Brown began in the Magistrate’s court on Tuesday 23rd June.  He is accused of assaulting a young parishioner.  The parishioner testified in courts saying that the archdeacon slapped her and threw her down and choked her.  The case has been adjourned to September.  Archdeacon Brown is represented by Wayne Munroe.  The Defence in cross-examination suggested that the young girl was engaged in sexual activity in public; fellatio on a boy and was simply reprimanded by the priest for her misbehaviour.

Stevie S Jailed

The musician Lemuel Smith known as Stevie S was Tuesday 23rd June given a one-year sentence in jail plus three years of probation for the rape of a 13-year-old girl.  Mr. Smith known for his hit record ‘Hold Your Head!’ will now have to hold his head indeed.  The Crown was not happy about the sentence given following the guilty plea on 30th April and the probation report.  It is appealing the sentence.  Recently, Parliament increased the penalty for this crime to life imprisonment although Mr. Smith was charged before the law was changed.

Nurses Fight On
Cleola Hamilton, the Nurses Union President, has rejected the latest offer of the government on the payment of health insurance for nurses.  Talks are continuing.

Union Leader Guilty Of Contempt
Jon Isaacs, the Supreme Court Justice, was none too happy about an allegation of bias made by President of the Bahamas Trade Union Congress John Pinder in response to his ruling in a dispute with the Airport Airline and Allied Workers Union (AAAWU).  He charged the Union leader and newspaper reporter Kendeno Knowles of the Bahama Journal with contempt for using the word in a story that appeared on 29th April.  Mr. Pinder was represented by former Cabinet Minister Algernon Allen who apologized to the court saying that the word biased was used in its colloquial sense not in the sense of being prejudicial to one side.  The Judge would have none of it and ordered that a public apology in a similar space be printed duly approved by the Court.  He told the reporter that his craft used words and that words should therefore be carefully used by him.

Court Of Appeal Rules Against Anita Allen
The Court of Appeal has ruled that Anita Allen, the Senior Justice on the Supreme Court should have recused herself from the case of the Wisefiches.  You may remember the hullabaloo caused when Mrs. Allen refused to step down and made certain allegations about fellow Justice John Lyons, which ultimately led to his resignation from the Bench (click here for previous story).

Edith Turnquest Turns 80
Wife of former Governor General Sir Orville Turnquest and daughter of famed straw vendor Bertha Brown. Edith, Lady Turnquest is celebrating her 80th birthday on Saturday 27th June.  Congratulations.  She is the mother of Minister of National Security Tommy Turnquest.

Dame Marguerite At 77

Dame Marguerite Pindling widow of the late Sir Lynden Pindling quietly celebrated with family and friends her 77th birthday at her home on Skyline Drive in New Providence on Friday 26th June. With her was her rector Archdeacon I. Ranfurly Brown.  From left in the photograph are Curate, Fr. Bernard Been, Dame Marguerite, PLP Leader Perry Christie and Archdeacon Brown.
Photo: Peter Ramsay.

Jack Hayward’s Son Locked Out Of His Father’s Property
The son of the Sir Jack Hayward, Rick Hayward, who was leading the charge to take over the Port totally from the St. Georges, appears to be in a spot of trouble with his own daddy.  The Nassau Guardian reports that the Grand Bahama Port Authority the ultimate landlord for the Port Lucaya entertainment complex in Freeport have locked out Mr. Hayward from several of his businesses in the Port Lucaya complex for non payment of rent.  Now that’s interesting.  We wonder who made that decision.  Rick’s father Sir Jack is effectively the owner of the Grand Bahama Port Authority, the landlord for Port Lucaya.

Bahamas Bar Election Results
Elections for The Bahamas Bar Council were held on Friday 26th June.  Wayne Munroe, the voluble lawyer who has headed the Bar for the past 6 years did not stand for re-election.  Some say there is trouble brewing in quarters close to him that will require his full time.  The Bar is now headed by Ruth Bowe Darville as President with Kathy Johnson Hassan as Vice President.  Joining them on the Council are Sidney Cambridge returned as Treasurer, and Rachel Culmer as Honorary Secretary with Monique Gomez and Dwayne Gibson as the two executive council members.  By our count that is three FNMs, two PLPs and one don’t know.  The FNMs have it.  You can expect that there will be no commentary from the Bar on anything relating to the government in the foreseeable future.

FNM No Potential Leaders
Dion Foulkes, Government Leader in the Senate, Carl Bethel and Tommy Turnquest must be incensed to know that Frank Watson, Hubert Ingraham’s front man in the campaign for Mr. Ingraham to come back for a fourth term as Prime Minister does not think any of them have the potential to be leaders of the FNM.  In his discussions in the press over the last week, Mr. Watson did not mention them as amongst those with the potential.  Brent Symonette made the list but even he, according to Mr. Watson, is not quite ready.  Frank Watson’s list, named on Wednesday 24th June: Dr. Hubert Minnis, Brent Symonette and Branville McCartney as the front-runners to succeed Hubert Ingraham.



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