The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

WHATSOEVER a man sows that shall he reap, said St Paul to the Galatians. Jerome Fitzgerald is learning about this reciprocal principle firsthand.

He sowed reading the private email correspondences of Save The Bays members in the House hiding behind the cloak of parliamentary privilege.

It was a move to intimidate and frighten members of that organisation, with the aim of convincing Bahamians that they were engaging in treasonous activities in an attempt to destabilise the PLP government.

The constitutional rights of Save The Bays members were trampled on in an arrogant and defiant manner.

Fitzgerald reaped his deed when The Tribune published his private email correspondences to Baha Mar developer Sarkis Izmirlian.

Thousands of Bahamians got to read his own words begging Mr Izmirlian for hefty contracts for his father’s business enterprises.

It was a clear violation of the ministerial rules. He should resign.

But Fitzgerald won’t resign. Nobody in PM Perry Christie’s slack administration believes in doing the honorable thing after having violating ministerial protocol.

Fitzgerald should be given his pink slip. But for some reason or another Christie seems to be of the view that he lacks the moral authority to fire his senior Cabinet ministers.

The PM runs a very slack administration, as has been shown in this government as well as in his first government.

He never shuffles his Cabinet or fires senior PLP ministers. Those within his clique are invincible. The only ones to feel the brunt of his wrath are the small minions.

Had this been former PM Hubert Ingraham’s Cabinet, Fitzgerald and Allyson Maynard-Gibson would have been fired years ago.

Fitzgerald will probably argue that he is not a beneficiary of any of his father’s business enterprises.

This argument would be similar to the one used by Maynard-Gibson, who told the Bahamian people that her close family’s business at Baha Mar does not compromise her position as the government’s negotiator for Baha Mar.

If there is one thing I have learned from Christie those is that they take the Bahamian people for fools.

Whatever one makes of this Baha Mar debacle, it is beginning to look like Fitzgerald and co elbowed Sarkis Izmirlian out of the way in petty retaliation for not acquiescing to their personal requests and demands.

The Fitzgerald leaked emails gives the Bahamian people an inside clue as to probably why these people fought Izmirlian tooth and nail to prevent that bankruptcy hearing in a US court.

Every single deal would have been laid bare for the whole world to see.

It was never about this country’s national sovereignty, for as Hubert Ingraham stated, Atlantis developer Sol Kerzner filed for bankruptcy in the US before, and no Bahamian took umbrage to him doing so.

Precedence in this regard had already been set. Furthermore, if PM Christie is so concerned about this country’s sovereignty, why does he along with his government hide behind the cloak of the Privy Council when the issue of the death penalty arises?

The Privy Council is a foreign court dictating to this country that it cannot execute convicted murderers, despite the fact that well over 1,100 murders have taken place in this country over the last decade.

The members of that foreign court do not live in our Nassau communities which have been taken over by dangerous criminal enterprises.

The PLP sacrificed 2,000 Bahamian jobs on the altar of political expediency.

They didn’t care about the thousands of families who would suffer needlessly because of their decision.

Two-thousand Bahamians left jobless. But Fitzgerald gets to keep his soft paying job. Maynard-Gibson also gets to keep hers.

Those with good memory would recall that Maynard-Gibson was instrumental in destroying the once promising political career of former PLP MP Pleasant Bridgewater during the John Travolta saga on Grand Bahama.  

Maynard-Gibson showed no mercy to her former political protege and ally.

Fitzgerald has survived the Rubis oil spill debacle.

He has survived the nolle prosequi saga.

He also was seen along with some PLP ministers in a video at Nygard Cay with Massa Peter Nygard.

Nygard was congratulating them on defeating the FNM.

The calls for their dismissal fell on deaf ears.

Any calls for Fitzgerald to stand down will also fall on deaf ears. PLPs are already defending him, even though it does not make one bit of sense to do so.

Fitzgerald, like Maynard-Gibson, has nine political lives just like cats. No matter how many political deaths they suffer, they keep coming back to life, because their party keeps resuscitating them.

Nothing will come of this latest scandal. Nothing ever does.

Any further calls for the dismissal of Fitzgerald and Maynard-Gibson might incur the middle finger from the PM.

Thankfully, the general election is just days away, so the Bahamian people will have the opportunity to do what the PM should have done years ago.

THE WHISTLEBLOWER

Nassau,

April 23, 2017.