We are drenched in a cesspool of official corruption, the stench permeating state and government. While many of our poor become poorer and much of the middle class is in financial crisis, a clique of mandarins and oligarchs and their families continue to grab whatever they can get.
Grabilicious is the Bahamian term for the deadly sin of avarice. Despite being full beyond need or capacity, many of the mandarins keep on grabbing and gorging. But like all deadly sins, greed never satiates the hunger for truth, beauty and goodness.
In the lament of a veteran political participant cum observer, corruption is more endemic now than that successive Pindling governments, save alone for the complicity of various senior officials with the illegal drugs trade in the 1970s and 1980s.
Back then, in his hasty retreat and return to the corruption-drenched PLP, Perry Christie proudly and boisterously proclaimed that he would swim through a noxious part liquid, part solid to re-join the very party that was mired in corruption. Christie returned to the “All for me baby” party. One former cabinet minister even declared that God made the Bahamas for the PLP.
Christie’s return to the PLP was telling. The Pindling court trusted him as their man, someone who would carry on certain traditions. If a defining test of his leadership was to stem and root out corruption in government and in the Progressive Liberal Party, Perry Gladstone Christie’s tenure as prime minister is a tragic failure.
The evil of corruption in high places has grown exponentially since the PLP’s re-election in 2012, galloping still with unprecedented speed, a frenzied lust for material gain at the expense of the poor and the middle class.
Many in the PLP oligarchy, among them a new breed of merchants of greed, are stuffing themselves with as many contracts and deals as they can devour, much like gluttons at a buffet, who care less how others on the line behind them fare.
The younger initiates of the oligarchy have learned well from the older mandarins, who are gorging themselves as they head toward the Last Judgement, unsure of the degree to which they may again access to the trough if the PLP loses the next election.
NOTORIOUS
In the Pindling era, the more notorious of the corrupt were infamous for requesting a 10 per cent cut or “commission” on deals and projects. Today’s corruption in certain public places is more flagrant and pervasive, with up to 25 and 50 per cent requested for “marketing” assistance, “partnerships” and an encyclopaedia of other euphemisms for shakedowns and graft.
Many are getting as much as they can as quickly as they can, especially given the possibility of losing access to the public purse and the “generosity” of those needing to do business with government to secure certain approvals and contracts.
When the fuller story of the collapse of Baha Mar is known, most Bahamians will be disgusted by the various interests who colluded to use the project as a money making scheme at the expense of the Bahamian people. How did such scheming contribute to the collapse of a project that has resulted in approximately 2,000 people losing their jobs and that may send the economy into a downward spiral?
Transparency is the enemy of potential corruption. Millions of untendered contracts have been awarded, including, notably, for roadworks and other projects in Andros. Quite a number of individuals were granted construction contracts at BAMSI despite not meeting certain requirements. It was not until the fire at one of the dormitories that much of this was brought to light.
When the Auditor General raised troubling questions about the finances of the Urban Renewal and Small Homes Repair Program, various government officials were not forthcoming and the work of the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Assembly was stymied.
The US State Department issued a troubling report on the bidding and procurement of contracts under the current Christie administration.
The report noted “undue government interference” in the bidding and procurement process, noting that the process is “particularly problematic”, and pressed further than earlier reports that, “there has not been a sustained effort to ensure that opportunities for abuse of the system are minimized.”
IMPROPRIETY
Though couched in relatively diplomatic language, the meaning could not be clearer.
The Nassau Guardian reported:
“Diverging from positions taken in earlier Investment Climate Reports, the document states that the US government has received a number of reports on impropriety in recent times surrounding the issuance of contracts by the government.”
The report continued:
“ ‘Over the last year, the embassy (in Nassau) has received several complaints from US companies alleging a lack of transparency and undue government interference with bidding and procurement processes’. ”
Which companies made the complaint and about which projects? Were the complaints made of any cabinet ministers or senior PLP operatives? How high up might any alleged corruption go? Are we on the verge of another orgy of revelations of scandals and corruption in the PLP, this time even worse than the previous Christie administration?
The decision by the State Department to make these observations in the Investment Climate Report is serious for a complex of reasons. Reports of possible shakedowns by government officials may have a negative effect on the country by dampening foreign investment by US companies.
Investors, American and otherwise, who consult with the US embassy in Nassau, may be cautioned about the “cost” of doing business with various individuals in the Christie administration.
The Report notes, “Anecdotal evidence suggests there is widespread patronage with contracts routinely directed to party supporters and benefactors.” Note that the report says, “widespread”. If it is widespread, what does the prime minister know and what action might he take to confront such “widespread patronage?”
During a trip to Africa US President Barack Obama noted:
“Nothing will unlock Africa’s economic potential more than ending the cancer of corruption. And you are right that it is not just a problem of Africa, it is a problem of those who do business with Africa. It is not unique to Africa -- corruption exists all over the world, including in the United States.
“But here in Africa, corruption drains billions of dollars from economies that can't afford to lose billions of dollars -- that's money that could be used to create jobs and build hospitals and schools.”
Of course, corruption is rife in the developed and developing worlds. And for those who reflexively demonize corrupt politicians, the world of commerce can be, in significant ways more corrupt and less transparent.
Mass corruption drains critical financial resources as well as other resources easily depleted and often difficult to restore: the trust of the governed and the authority of those who govern in our name.
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws do not protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed.
~ Ayn Rand
If we aren't there yet, we are certainly close.
Posted by: Jeremy | January 19, 2016 at 07:34 AM