They are also suggesting that the Prime Minister should act now to rid his government of those who would undermine it, and deflect it from its mission.
Having come to power on the basis of a raft of promises pivoting on a theme which emphasized ﾓhelp and hope,ﾔ the ﾑNewﾴ Progressive Liberal Party is today being blown off course. There is an emerging consensus that the Christie administration may today be reaping a part of the harvest, which come with a style of governance which reposes almost unconditional support to those considered part of the team. With any number of instances where there is either sleaze or the appearance of sleaze, the Christie team seems strangely ambivalent, and often incoherent.
Take for example the troubles at the Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation which have already claimed one major victim in the form of M.P. Sidney Stubbs, its erstwhile Executive Chairman. When he resigned, political observers breathed an immediate sigh of relief. But then, not for long. The matter involving the Korean Boats and Mr. Earlin Williams continues to call into question the governmentﾴs good sense. The matter involving Junkanoo and bleachers, and the governmentﾴs wisdom in farming out some of its operations to a private contractor, continues to trouble any number of sensitive observers of the national political scene. Here again, even though it has not been loudly voiced, are whispers suggesting sleaze of the nepotistic variety.
Regrettably, this is where things have reached for an administration which came to office on the wings of its own campaign against sleaze and perceived corruption.
At the core of this troubling situation is both irony and paradox. The time has surely come for Prime Minister the Hon. Perry G. Christie to take stock, stem the tide of allegation against his administration and to move decisively to rid his team of sleaze and the appearance of sleaze.
As we have previously suggested, what Bahamians, in their majority need and want, is a government which is competently run, and one which is clean. This is what they have always wanted.
Today we recall that there was a time in The Bahamas when businessmen ran the government. It was then assumed ﾖ at least by those men ﾖ that what was good for business, was good for the government and people of The Bahamas.
This way of doing things was challenged by a new breed of politician, who argued that business and government belonged to entirely different spheres of operation. Leading the charge was none other than former prime minister and Father of The Nation, the Rt. Hon. Sir Lynden O. Pindling. Despite taking a leading role in ushering in a new way of doing things, Sir Lynden and his colleagues did not escape charges that they had, on occasion, confused their private dealings with their public duties. A part of the problem relates to what is a fact of life in The Bahamas, namely that politicians will find one means or the other to feather their nests.
Time and again, politicians on both sides of the political divide have found themselves either in conflict, or being tagged with the perception of conflict. Again, when reference is made to times past, this phenomenon is relatively new. The novelty lies in the fact that for all of the past thirty-six years, a rising class of business savvy politicians have been making names for themselves inside and outside of government. Today, no one would dispute the contention that political connections and influence play a large part in making some people rich.
However a problem arises with this matter when the effort at enrichment and empowerment by way of connections is so blatantly and crudely executed that public opinion is offended. There are scores of examples with could be dredged up from the histories of both the Free National Movement and the Progressive Liberal Party to illustrate the thesis that some political operatives sometimes go too far.
There is also an abundance of evidence to show that in times past, leaders who knew when they had to cut their losses and move on. Prime Minister Christie must act now, if he wishes to salvage the credibility and good name of his administration.
Editor, The Bahama Journal
