The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Many Bahamians are angry with Prime Minister Christie’s efforts to assist Mr Ishmael Lightbourne because hundreds of Bahamians of much less financial means than Mr Lightbourne have not received such personal assistance from the prime minister when they were about to lose their homes to mortgage foreclosures notwithstanding the exaggerated promises made by the PLP during the 2012 Election campaign to help save the homes of such people.

Others were angry because they saw, rightly I think, the prime minister’s intervention as an abuse of power and completely inappropriate for the leader of the country. His actions and attitude are reminiscent of disgraced US President Richard Nixon, who in dismissing allegations of wrong-doing by him as President during the Watergate Scandal, told British TV journalist David Frost: “Well, when the president (read prime minister) does it that means that it is not illegal”!

The prime minister says that accusations that he abused the power of his office in the Lightbourne matter are “trite”. The dictionary defines “trite” as commonplace, stale, worn or tired. I wonder whether that is the standard that Mr Christie applies to every allegation of corruption and abuse of power made against him.

Weeks ago, Mr Christie informed Parliament that, “as prime minister”, he had intervened with a private bank in an effort to save the home of his friend and VAT Consultant from foreclosure.

He often qualifies anything that he says or does with the phrase “as prime minister”. It must bring him comfort.

Mr V Alfred Gray, his Minister of Agriculture, commenting on the matter, said the prime minister should be praised for his compassionate action standing up to the Court Bailiff who had come to deliver an eviction notice to Mr Lightbourne.

But now, the prime minister says that he and Lightbourne are not friends and have no social relationship. In fact, speaking to Members of the Chamber of Commerce last week, the Prime Minister claimed that his phone call to the Bank executive was actually an attempt by him to protect the bank’s interest!

The prime minister spoke as if the bank required his personal intervention on the matter.

As a lawyer, Mr Christie should know that the Bank had full recourse to the Courts to secure its interest in the residence and in fact the Bank had done just that.

Mr Christie’s intervention, as prime minister or otherwise, could do nothing to stop the court sanctioned foreclosure on the VAT Consultant’s residence.

The prime minister claims that that during his 40 years in public life he had helped hundreds of Bahamians in a similar fashion to Mr Lightbourne. He said if there were hundreds more that needed help they should all be sent to him and he would give them advice. And he revealed that since announcing his assistance to Lightbourne, he had made similar calls to banks for four or five other families.

Listening to the prime minister, all I could think was poor Ishmael. If he had expected help from the prime minister what he received was the public exposure of his financial insolvency and no assistance whatsoever in rising funds to save his home from foreclosure. Moreover, the prime minister has now revealed that he was not terribly interested in helping Lightbourne, he was always seeking to help protect the Bank’s interest!

I hope the other four or five families the prime minister claimed to have recently assisted are faring better than Lightbourne.

The prime minister, as many of us have come to expect, is singing out of both sides of his mouth at the same time but with dramatically different tunes.

On one side he wants to build a new official residence for the prime minister, on the other side, he wants to advise citizens – experiencing the highest level of joblessness in a generation, hundreds if not thousands of whom who can’t pay school fees, medical expenses or rent, on what they might do if they are about to lose their homes to foreclosure.

It now appears that his intervention might have accelerated the Bank’s determination to seize and dispose of Mr Lightbourne’s house so as to satisfy its losses on the mortgaged property.

My advice to anyone requiring assistance with their banks would be to avoid the prime minister who appears to be incapable of keeping his mouth closed and who takes special delight in using the private struggles in the lives of citizens to demonstrate that he is a wonderfully kind and caring individual when in reality it appears that he is an egotistical, arrogant man obsessed with being recognised as prime minister.

CECILE EVANS

Nassau,

April 6, 2014.