The firestorm over the revelations of Mr Ishmael Lightbourne not paying his property taxes has caused a number of MP’s to confess that they might be, or might have been in a similar position.
We’ve been told it would be a shock if who owes taxes and in what gargantuan amounts was revealed.
This in itself is a sorry admission that our laws are not being upheld by the civil servants responsible for the various Acts.
But, in the absence of a formal code of conduct signed by consultants, MP’s or Senators, or an Act of Parliament, the prime minister, a man that says he is above repute, has lost a fabulous teaching moment for the nation and tax dodgers in particular.
Instead of making excuses for this behaviour, even though we can all fall on hard times, the nation, at least the taxpayers among us, would have applauded had the prime minister quietly pulled Mr Lightbourne aside and had him resign, even if he and his other cronies would have had to help him pay the back taxes off.
But alas this will go down as yet one more instance where our country chose to support wrongdoing and unethical behaviour over doing the right thing.
What a sorry example we are sometimes to the younger generation and even the world at large.
By: Rick Lowe
www.weblogbahamas.com
