EDITOR, The Tribune
THE Minnis administration is batting 1,000 with respect to announcements that forensic audits will be conducted at NIB, Urban Renewal, BAIC, BAMSI and other government run agencies.
Many Bahamians voted in favour of the FNM in order to get a straightfoward, honest assessment of the nation’s financial state. We don’t believe the Christie administration was forthright with the Bahamian people. If the preliminary report on the audit of Urban Renewal means anything, it means that malfeasance may have occurred under former PM Perry Christie’s watch, which isn’t saying anything much.
The Tribune, in addition to reporting that several NIB senior officials were put on leave, pending the outcome of an imminent audit of the said organisation, reported that prominent PLP Sir Baltron Bethel was sent home from his soft, high paying job at the Office of the Prime Minister.
As a senior advisor to Christie, Bethel’s salary must have been near the six-figure range, if not exactly six figures. Bethel is near 90 - which means that he is at least 20 years over the retirement age of 65. His employment is one of the many reasons why the PLP was wiped out of New Providence by the young people.
As a senior citizen, Bethel’s appointment to his lucrative post made as much sense as a five-legged horse. As a staunch ally of Christie and a well-known political appointee of the PLP administration, why did Sir Baltron report to work on the morning of May 11? How was he able to conjure up the courage to walk into the Office of the PM knowing that Dr Minnis is now his boss?
Was he really entertaining the far-fetched notion that Minnis would keep him on as his advisor? Sir Baltron knows full well the proper protocol to follow, seeing that he was also employed in the Pindling government back in the day. He is a veteran. He knows that he should have tendered his resignation on the day following the general election.
The FNM shouldn’t have to give him or any other PLP political appointee their pink slips. When the Bahamian people fired their party, it meant that they as PLP appointees were also fired. End of story.
PS: When political appointees, be they FNMs or PLPs, are sent home by an incoming government they don’t support, it is not victimisation.
THE WHISTLEBLOWER
May 30, 2017
Comments
OMG 6 years, 11 months ago
So true. How about the long serving boss of Bahamasair in Eleuthera retiring and then being rehired in Nassau ? How about all the ex BUT presidents who after leaving that post were hired as consultants in the Ministry of Education. How about the Director of education already enjoying an extra 2 years after the retirement age now wants another 2 years ? Careers are like escalators -young should enter at the bottom and at 65 the old retire and then everyone moves up a notch. But under the corrupt PLP there was no chance as the top jobs became permanent almost until death.
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