BAHAMIANS have an incredible tolerance for official villainy.
The same people who honk their horn a split second after the light turns green become pushovers when officials announce that $25m is missing from Urban Renewal.
The same people who push ahead in a line because they don’t have time to waste become patient nationalists when they read that $48m may be missing from Road Traffic.
The very people who cry foul at the slightest outage by Cable Bahamas because they can’t get the basketball game they want to watch sit quietly by when $23.8m can’t be accounted for by the Mortgage Relief Fund.
What about the $85m unaccounted for on BAMSI and a missing $10m from Social Services?
Bahamians have a right to be angry over missing funds. Bahamians have a right to pound their fists on the table and demand answers and accountability when government officials themselves, right up to the level of the Prime Minister, admit to $191m they cannot account for.
Excuses like “it’s easy to piss away money” do not explain, nor do they justify the behaviour that seems all too acceptable to all too many people who want to trust their government.
Wanting to trust government is understandable. When we do not trust the people we have elected to lead us, we question ourselves. What is wrong with our judgment? And if we got it wrong, what can we do about it? Should we refuse to pay what government wants us to pay in Customs duties, driver’s licence or business licence fees and Value-Added Tax? On a practical basis, what lines of resistance are open to us?
It is a fair question because a state of anger implies that action can and should be taken to resolve its cause. Ignoring it and carrying on as if nothing were wrong, even if $191m is missing or unaccounted for, makes us feel ashamed. Not doing anything is like leaving an itch unscratched - except far more grave.
We believe that Bahamians are angry but that anger has been buried for so long that it has almost become a condition that we live with instead of acting on. We also believe that the anger that lies beneath the surface is beginning to boil. As elections draw near, that anger, the people’s anger, will find a voice. Fear of victimisation will be replaced by a courage that we have not seen before.
All over the world, prisons are populated with officials who violated the trust that was placed in them when they were elected. Being held accountable is nothing new. It has been happening since the first financial scandal that historians now trace back to 300 BC. In modern times, scandals have rocked governments from Europe to Africa and throughout South America. In Panama, the entire government toppled over trying to cover up millions lost by investors in the Panama Canal, paying bribes to keep the Panama Affair quiet rather than launching an investigation or commission of inquiry.
In 2015 in Connecticut, a Democratic state senator Ernie Newton was sentenced to six months in prison on three counts of illegal practices in connection with state campaign financing. Several years earlier, he served four years on federal charges of accepting a $5,000 bribe and related charges. In 2016, while still appealing the state conviction, the disgraced former senator showed up as senior vice president of a firm bidding for a garbage contract. In the ‘Teapot Dome’ scandal, a former Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall was jailed for taking bribes to lease government property to Mammoth Oil Co. And who can forget the look of horror on faces across America when New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the man who marshalled all forces to bring evil banks to justice for the abuses that led to the great recession of 2008, himself was found to be morally wanting?
The difference between all those cases and the Bahamas is that people in other places demanded better. Those who failed them were shamed. Those who violated their trust were punished.
Not being able to account for $191m is not a jokey thing that can be explained away with an offhand, off-colour remark. If Bahamians find the courage of their anger, they will demand a proper explanation or they will expect better of the new administration they elect.
Tolerance has its place. Tolerance of wrongdoing does not. That is not tolerance, it is apathy and its cost is higher than Bahamians should be willing to pay.
Comments
MonkeeDoo 7 years ago
I do not believe that the vast majority of Bahamians realize that it is their money that allows the government to function. VAT is having an impact however and will very likely take the PLP down, but import duty, and other taxes like Real Property Tax are never seen by the vast majority of Bahamians. So when the Government of the day squanders it, they just shrug their shoulders thinking, why should I care. They know what VAT is though and its the first time that people have gotten off their rumps and Marched to protest. They know the pain of the people in Jubilee too, and they are all aware of the RUBIS spill and, well, the fickle finger of fate being flashed at the world, was the final straw.
Well_mudda_take_sic 7 years ago
Missing funds from the public purse of this magnitude is exactly what has the greedy power hungry eyes of Minnis all glazed over with optimistic glee. He reckons it will soon be his turn to drink heavily from the bountiful trough known as the public purse. And drink he will, very mightily.
DDK 7 years ago
Give it a rest!
JohnDoe 7 years ago
So if Minnis has glazed over greedy power hungry eyes for just thinking about the money in the public purse, I am curious as to how you would describe the tiefing men and women who were the last to be seen with the missing money?
sheeprunner12 7 years ago
We saw what "anger" results in ............ Omar Archer ........................ but May 10th will put all of this to rest and the next Hubert Minnis-led FNM government will carry out a forensic Royal Commission of Inquiry on the PLP Cabinet under Perry Christie since 2012........... find the $2 Billion of missing Treasury funds and then LOCK their teefing asses up ........... That is why Perry/Brave/Gray/AMG/Obie etc. are scared shit-less right now
Seaman 7 years ago
Well_ Mudda............. You sound like the kind of person that will screw us from behind and don't even give us a reach around. You don't know who in the other parties will steal.......But you damn sure know who stealing now. Its time to try someone else.
OMG 7 years ago
As I frequently mention the public tends to forget the raft of other less obvious taxes. Stamp Tax on accounts, VAT on accounts, Hazzard disposal tax (the dump) on and on. It wouldn't be so bad if something constructive was done with this money that conveniently disappears into the consolidated fund but nothing is done of any worth such as paying down the national debt (not deficit), replacing aging power stations, providing reliable water supplies, fixing the roads.
Well_mudda_take_sic 7 years ago
As I've repeatedly said, Minnis has failed to passionately commit to the undertaking of the following eight (8) vital actions and measures that are absolutely necessary to turn things around for the Bahamas:
1) Hold a Royal Commission of Enquiry to investigate the more egregious instances of corruption, fraud and outright theft that have occurred under the Christie administration during the last five years:
2) Pass meaningful and enforceable freedom of information legislation with few exceptions or loop holes for the government and politicians of the day;
3) Introduce new enforceable financial disclosure requirements for MPs and senators alike, free of the existing loop holes and with stiff penalties of substance for non-compliance within the specified timeframe.
4) Establish a formal Office for a truly Independent Director of Prosecutions in order to once and for all end the government's ability to wrongfully interfere with the judiciary through its de facto executive (PM) control of the Office of the Attorney General;
5) The wholesale repeal of the gaming web shop legislation;
6) New legislation to establish a National Lottery, the profits from which would be earmarked solely for the purpose of contributing to the financial needs of our public education system;
7) Tighten legislation to give the Office of the Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee the biting teeth they need to discharge their important duties in the way intended and expected; and
8) Introduce campaign finance reform legislation to avoid the will of Bahamian voters being thwarted by large amounts of 'tainted' money directed at politicians by the likes of Sebas Bastian, Craig Flowers, Peter Nygard, Christie's Red China friends, and so on.
A couple of these vital initiatives are lightly touched on in the FNM manifesto. The DNA manifesto addresses even more of them. But a passionate stance by Minnis and the FNM on implementing just these eight major actions and measures alone would go a long ways towards putting the Bahamas on the right road for its future and the betterment of the Bahamian people. You would think those registered voters who might be inclined to support the FNM would be insisting the FNM candidate in their constituency emphatically endorse each of these eight critically needed initiatives. It is indeed surprising that Minnis himself has made no meaningful or passionate commitment to registered voters to undertake these most important matters as a matter of priority should he become PM. Minnis instead prefers to ramble on and on ad nauseum about how the Christie-led PLP government has failed the Bahamian people. It's as if Minnis and the FNM believe they need not commit to anything on our behalf. That just can't be right and should give each of us voters serious pause for thought!
DDK 7 years ago
You do sound at though it's personal. You have been sounding like a broken record for quite a while.
Well_mudda_take_sic 7 years ago
You'll make no more headway with my stubbornness than you would in getting Minnis to genuinely commit to any the 8 matters I've identified above. And that should tell you something!
paperbahamian 7 years ago
Not punishing the wrong doers to the full extent of the law after the last Commission of Inquiry sowed the seeds for the debacle the country now faces. If heads had rolled then a lesson might have been learned. The Bahamas is reaping the rewards of a half finished job over 20 years ago.
Reality_Check 7 years ago
Like Mudda I suspect Minnis and his crew, if elected, would be much too busy going about lining their own pockets to bother with the eight (8) vital initiatives identified above by Mudda, including the holding of a Royal Commission of Enquiry. Besides the last thing Minnis would want to do is make it difficult for himself and his cronies to drink from what Mudda calls the "bountiful" fountain of tax dollars and national debt borrowings. I also strongly agree with Mudda that Christie cannot be allowed another five years. It would seem there is really only one solution, and it goes without saying.
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