The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I thank you for the opportunity to respond to a letter that appeared in the editorial sections of the print media on the 21st and 22nd of December 2021 under the pen of SLB and the title “Incompetence and lack of transparency over carnival”.

The writer, who chose to hide behind a nom de plume, in my view, fabricated a false narrative in pursuit of a purely politically driven narrative and agenda. I assert this because the Controller of Customs allowed entry of the carnival equipment under the legal authority vested in that office under the Customs Management Act.

I go further. If any detractor of the Prime Minister and his government has evidence that the Controller of Customs acted contrary to law, the onus is on them to produce the evidence or forever hold their peace. To date, no detractor has.

If the detractors have evidence that the Health and Wellness Minister acted improperly and misrepresented his office in accepting the expert advice of the fourteen scientists that comprise the EOC and for so advising the Cabinet Committee to adopt the same, the detractors must produce the evidence or forever hold their peace. To date, no detractor has.

Prime Minister Davis and Minister Darville have always asserted from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that they would follow the science in making policy decisions and to date, they have.

A routine operational procedure by the Controller of Customs that is part and parcel of the cut and thrust of government (and governance) cannot become a salacious national scandal because somebody imagines that it should be to serve their purposes.

There is also this false narrative that the Prime Minister is hiding behind some personality or statement. The Prime Minister is under no obligation to speak publicly on any procedural matter and decision that is satisfied by settled law because his political detractors imagine that he should speak.

Those many so-called unanswered questions are nothing more than imagined fanciful public ruminations in a vain attempt to create, or fabricate, a tempest, controversy or to create a specter of some sort consistent with their agenda which usually leads down a rabbit hole. Correspondingly, the disciplined execution of public policy and slavish adherence to the rule of law must be stubbornly impatient of imagined and fanciful public ruminations by those who seek to distract.

Are the detractors of Mr Davis and his government right or wrong? They are neither right nor wrong, they were just playing a good old fashion game of catch-22. Some call the tactic “bait and switch”. Had the government overruled the fourteen scientists and allowed carnival to proceed, his detractors would have probably accused him of failing to protect the public interest by sacrificing the health and life of many unvaccinated adolescent Bahamians on the altar of political convenience.

Some unsolicited advice for the Davis government. Whenever your detractors question, spin or challenge your policy decisions, always wrap your policy decisions in the law and publicly challenge. Challenge them to either show where the law and public policy were violated or forever hold their peace.

Suffice it to say, in protecting the public interest, the Davis Government acted according to law on carnival.

ELCOTT E COLEBY

Nassau,

December 22, 2021.