The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

SHANE GIBSON, Minister of Labour and National Insurance, has refuted claims that he was “broke” before his election to the House of Assembly.

The allegations, Mr Gibson said, suggest that he was “a broke man” upon becoming a front line politician. His assets, at the time, included a $500,000 Lake Cunningham house and $200,000 in the bank, Mr Gibson said.

He made the declarations last week in the House of Assembly.

“When I became a Member of Parliament,” Mr Gibson said, “I owned five pieces of property in Grand Bahama... including one on the golf course which I still own today. I owned a triplex in West Avenue. I owned a half million dollar house that I bought in Lake Cunningham. I, Mr Speaker, had almost $200,000 cash in the bank. That’s what I had when I became a Member of Parliament. 

“But if you listen to some persons on the outside and on the inside, you would think that when you came to Parliament you came with nothing. I don’t know how you define a man who has $200,000 in the bank broke when he comes to Parliament. I don’t know how you could define a man who was able to go to First Caribbean Bank and get a mortgage for $500,000, and that’s half a million dollars, as broke.”

Prior to taking office as the Golden Gates constituency MP in 2002, Mr Gibson served as the Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union’s (BCPOU) trustee and administrator of its pension plan. He then became the plan’s director.   

He was elected, in 1997, the BCPOU’s president.