Like a spoiled five-year-old, Bran McCartney’s behaviour in the House of Assembly yesterday displayed numerous reasons why voters should be wary of making him leader of the Bahamas.
Shouting and carrying on like a junk-yard dog, Bran McCartney refused to yield to the House Speaker and verbally attacked Edison Key yesterday in the House of Assembly, over Key’s allegations that McCartney solicited and accepted business for his law firm while he was a sitting member of Cabinet.
Mr Key claims that back in 2007, McCartney accepted a $5,000 check from BAIC to help recover millions of dollars in unpaid debt. Key says McCartney never did the legal work.
Key also claims that he met with Mr McCartney in his office at BAIC to discuss the matter.
McCartney says all this is untrue. He says he never met with Mr Key, never solicited work from BAIC and never accepted $5,000.
However, Mr McCartney does admit that an associate of his, another lawyer at his Halsbury Chambers law firm, did indeed do business with BAIC during McCartney’s time as Cabinet Minister.
It has been confirmed that Donald Saunders, a former associate of Mr McCartney did, and still does, work for BAIC.
McCartney demanded that Mr Key resign, and called on the Prime Minister to fire him if he doesn’t.
The ruckus ended only after House Speaker Alvin Smith said the matter would be referred to the committee of privilege for an Inquiry.
But one thing is sure… Mr McCartney’s ego, attitude and behaviour show that he is completely unfit for leadership of The Bahamas.
Opponents accuse Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham of being dictatorial, impulsive and strong-headed. But at least Mr Ingraham keeps things on a professional level, at least in public. Mr McCartney’s behaviour was an embarrassment to all Bahamians and would create an international situation if he displayed that behaviour outside The Bahamas.
Later, Fred Mitchell, always happy to take a swipe at the FNM, chimed in to say he thought it was improper for Mr Key to have hired McCartney’s law firm in the first place.
Mitchell was conveniently unaware that Mr Key did not know McCartney was the founder and head of the Halsbury Chambers, something that Mr McCartney and his associate lawyer didn’t really mention.
This is not the first time Mr McCartney’s ethics have been called into question.
He has also been said to charge outrageous amounts of money for inferior legal work. Of course, that’s true of so many Bahamian lawyers, that it wouldn’t be right to single Mr McCartney out.
What is interesting in this matter is that there are some people who think that it is okay that Mr McCartney’s law firm did business with BAIC while McCartney was a sitting Cabinet Minister. They think it was okay because Mr McCartney says he was an “inactive” partner of his law firm at the time.
Yet, these same people demand the resignation of DPM Brent Symonette because his children own shares in a company that received road paving work from the government while Symonette sits in Cabinet. Surely, Mr Symonette could not be anything more than an “inactive” owner of the company his children own shares in, yet he has been chastised and called unethical. Seems to be a bad case of double standards.
