Bahama Pundit

McCartney’s Vanity Fair

by Simon

Halloween arrived early at the House of Assembly last week.  It made a sneak preview during the debate on establishing a Straw Market Authority.  In his debate wrap-up Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham spooked Branville McCartney by lobbing a few political trick-or-treats at the DNA Leader. 

They were offered in a trademark Ingraham jest, often crafted to rattle opponents by delivering a serious message guised as humour.  So effective were the barbs that Mr. McCartney’s tough-guy mask slipped, sending him into a dizzying array of costume changes.

The MP for Bamboo Town reacted as a cry-baby and as a victim and martyr, before trying to steady himself and regain his tough-guy persona.  He even donned his maximum leader costume by imperially declaring: “The good thing about being leader of this party is that I can determine where I can run.”

Public Information on Justice & Crime

by Larry Smith

In Parliament last week, National Security Minister Tommy Turnquest responded to my complaint about the lack of comprehensive information on crime and justice by saying there was "too much" of it in the public domain!

He then went on to table the latest crime statistics (which obviously weren't public beforehand), and quoted from a report which he described as "confidential" because it contained the names of judges who had granted bail to repeat offenders and others accused of serious crimes.

Well, why should that little detail make such a report confidential? The data in that report contains most of the information I was referring to earlier. If a public official (a judge) makes a public decision (a ruling) in a public court of law, how come the public can't know about it?

If I attended the courts 24/7 (as the chief justice so helpfully suggested recently) I would already know this information. Give me a flipping break!

And even if we were to concede that this particular piece of public information should be kept secret, why isn't the rest of the information contained in the report put in the public domain and published on a regular basis?

Only a few months ago the Guardian was complaining that it couldn't get access to the latest crime figures from the police. Turnquest eventually broke that bottleneck, but that doesn't deny it existed.

Why are we so petulant about the issue of public information being available in the public domain? We all know how things go here. As I said before, the political class think that information is their right to withhold as one of the perquisites of power.

I'll say it again - in order to properly weigh the issue of bail we need comprehensive facts and figures. How many suspects are bailed annually, for what offences and after what length of remand? How many of these people commit crimes while on bail? What happens to them after that? What are the reasons for them being bailed? I could go on, and on.

 

Critics Ignore Some Inconvenient Points

by Simon

The more dishonest critics of Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Hubert Ingraham’s handling of the effects of the global economic crisis on The Bahamas typically stretch the truth if not outright shred it to pieces. 

There are three main inconvenient points these critics fail to honestly assess: The nature and severity of the financial crisis and its impact on The Bahamas, the Prime Minister’s deftness and dexterity in handling the crisis, and their own lack of a credible alternative in dealing with the same despite their flippant criticism.

In the telling of some, for nakedly partisan reasons, Hubert Ingraham is responsible for the terrible effects of the financial meltdown on The Bahamas.   Never mind that most of the region and the world have been similarly affected with some countries in an even worse position than The Bahamas.

Addressing Crime and Dengue Fever in the Bahamas

by Larry Smith

The big story this week was from the House of Assembly, where the government tabled a raft of hugely anticipated legislation designed to ratchet up the fight against crime.

The measures included changes to the Bail Act, the Firearms Act and the Dangerous Drugs Act, as well as new laws to protect witnesses and curb the sale of stolen property. Two new courts will apply stiffer penalties for drug and gun crimes, and border controls will be strengthened for firearms.

In the run-up to the introduction of these proposals, National Security Minister Tommy Turnquest criticised judges for being "too liberal" in giving bail to suspected offenders. Lawyer Dion Hanna called the minister's remarks "intemperate," but I disagree. I would say his remarks speak to an important question of justice and public policy. Whether they were right or wrong is another matter.

DNA & Its Leader Prove Amateurish & Reckless

by Simon

Since the glitzy launch of his party, DNA Leader Branville McCartney has been relentlessly gaffe- and blunder-prone making a series of amateurish and ill-advised statements.  One of the more egregious is his intention that children born of illegal immigrants be constitutionally banned from applying for citizenship.

For this he has been criticized by a chorus of voices including a senior prelate who questioned whether a politician expressing such an extreme position should ever hold the office of Prime Minister.

Here we go again. In at least two recent press statements the DNA has doubled-down demonstrating yet again a stunning amateurism and now, recklessness.  The statements spotlight the party’s muddled thinking and the poor judgement of its leader who allowed such statements to be issued. 

The Never-Ending Story of Banco Ambrosiano

by Larry Smith

The area between Lightbourne Lane and Brown's Boat Basin was once a collection of modest wooden homes, periodically flattened in the early part of the 20th century by one hurricane or another. But in the spring of 1982 an impressive new building rose from these ruined lots along East Bay Street.

At the time, Banco Ambrosiano's multi-million-dollar, four-storey office building overlooking the harbour (now owned by Colina Insurance) was said to be the island's biggest non-hotel investment ever. It represented an ostentatious display by one of the top players in the international financial sector - a bank with close ties to the Vatican.

Tribune reporter Athena Damianos was suitably impressed following a guided tour at the gala opening: “The wealth and power of Banco Ambrosiano of Milan – the largest private bank in Italy and parent of the Nassau bank – is strongly evident,” she wrote, describing a vast marble stairway, an impregnable security system, and luxurious penthouse apartments for visiting directors.

Back then, Banco Ambrosiano's Nassau subsidiary was led by a flamboyant Swiss banker named Pierre Siegenthaler. He was a well-known man-about-town who won international regattas on behalf of the Royal Nassau Sailing Club, where his custom-built catamaran was berthed.

When Banco Ambrosiano opened the doors of its plush new offices on East Bay Street in April, 1982, Siegenthaler joked about the lavish appointments: “We don’t have gold telephones, but the style of this organisation is to do things with taste and to do it well...We’re going to be here a long, long time.”

Opposition Grandstanding on Problems it Failed to Tackle

by Simon

It takes a certain chutzpah to attempt to manipulate problems one failed to address when in office but of which one has now become conveniently expert out of office and promising to fix next time around.  Welcome to the Opposition’s failed summer plans seeking yet again to blame the Government for problems the latter is busy fixing and which the former failed to substantively tackle.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, who share a birthday this week, will both face their electorates in relatively short order.  The summer prelude to their re-election prospects offers some clues into the lead-up to the general elections in their respective countries.

Both incumbents face voter frustration over jobs and the pace of economic recovery following the global financial downturn. Despite his generally deft handling of the crisis, Mr. Ingraham understands how appreciably the Bahamian recovery depends on the outcomes of debt crises in Europe and an impasse on raising the debt limit and tackling debt and deficit in the United States.

There has been unusually hot weather during the first two-thirds of the summer of 2011.  With August quite young, we will see what the remainder of summer brings.   The rising temperatures concern daily life as well as political happenings.

The Alternate Reality of Bahamian Squatter Settlements

 by Larry Smith

"If it was up to me I'd toss two stick a dynamite in erry one a dem dingy damned 'villages'. How is it that these ILLEGAL ALIENS can come in any time they wish and toss up a 'house' with no proper facilities to speak of and the relevant ministry folk say and do nothing. But when the average hard working Joe Blow tries to put down something, God help ya if you missin' some papers cuz dey ga have da buldozer there the next day." -- commentator on Bahamas Issues

That quote reflects the feelings of many Bahamians. But the deeper we delve into the so-called 'Haitian problem', the more we come face to face with ourselves. The squatter settlements that give rise to so much public angst are a clear example of the alternate reality that many Bahamians live in, and we are not the only ones grappling with these issues.

"Squatter settlements are all over Jamaica," according to Gleaner columnist Victor Cummings, "on hillsides, roadsides, gully banks, inner-city areas, government land, and private land. The squatting problem is not only seriously affecting the physical development of our country, but also our economic and social stability."

There are over 700 squatter sites in Jamaica with well over half a million residents, Trinidad and Tobago has 300 squatter settlements, with more than 400,000 residents. Guyana has over 200, and in St Lucia squatter settlements are a feature of all major towns and villages.

The 38 squatter settlements on New Providence include 940 houses out of a total housing stock on the island of some 70,000. According to a 2010 government survey, many of these illegal villages are on private land and they have grown by about 200 houses since the Christie administration looked at the problem in the early 2000s.

An Invitation To: We the People – Part 2

by Simon

Mohandas Gandhi’s moral wisdom, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others,” is a variation on a theme which finds expression across many cultures and religions.

It is also paradoxical wisdom which might inform the moral education of students in the public and private school systems including in regard to community service programmes.  Though fairly ubiquitous in secondary schools these programmes tend to fail the grade in terms of vision and scope, as well as priority and organization.

The quality of community service programmes vary widely from the mandatory to the episodic, from individual to group projects to what actually constitutes a service project.  While most programmes are well meaning, the majority lack sufficient oversight and a service-learning component.

While just about everyone in the education field lauds service programmes in our schools, most are poorly designed and in need of clearer guidelines and more vigorous support from education leaders and related stakeholders.

Fixing the Criminal Justice System

by Larry Smith

In a wide-ranging interview on ZNS last week, former Bar Association president and top trial lawyer Wayne Munroe pointed out some of the critical failures of our criminal justice system while offering up some practical solutions.

But the unfortunate thing about what he had to say is that it has all been said before over the years in one form or another - and largely ignored by the political class, according to Munroe.

"It's a systems issue that we diagnosed well before 2002 and the system has only gotten worse since then," he told Jerome Sawyer, host of ZNS' nightly interview show, The Sawyer Report.

Defying conventional wisdom, he claimed "the fixes are not in the judicial system but in the executive system, on the prosecutorial side. It is not the courts that are to blame. We spend time making recommendations and governments come and go but nothing ever changes."