The Tribune

BAHAMIANS in Nassau are now asking how much moving the cabinet to Abaco for a supposed one-day meeting will cost the Public Treasury. They also want to know how many hours were spent at the meeting, how many cabinet ministers attended, and how many returned to Nassau at the end of the day.

They were curious as to how many ministers remained in Abaco to assist in the campaign for the PLP’s North Abaco candidate in the bye-election. They were even more interested in how much of the expenses were to be charged to PLP funds, or to the Public Treasury.

In fact those who called felt that the whole episode was a cheap charade and that the taxpayer should not have to pay for any of it.

The groups from Nassau arrived on separate flights and were met by a fleet of cars to take them to their destination.

It was boasted that history was made on Tuesday, October 2, when cabinet members, headed by Mr Christie, took their positions around the long table in Marsh Harbour’s new Administrative building, constructed by the Ingraham government, but sorely criticised by the Christie Opposition as a waste of money. As he praised the “opportunity that the new complex afforded” them to meet there, Mr Christie seemed to have forgotten the earlier opportunity it had given him to condemn the Ingraham government for its construction. But, as they say, that’s just politics – the kind of politics that Bahamians with memory are tired of.

The questions being asked by the public are questions that Tribune reporters will soon be asking Mr Christie. By then we hope he will have had time to get his accounts in order and will be prepared to give a full statement of how the people’s money was spent on the Abaco safari.

We have been told that all the cabinet — with the exception of Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell who was in New York — attended the Abaco meeting. It is also understood that Mr Christie overnighted and returned to Nassau the following day.

However, Abaconians are telling us that several of the ministers remained for several days campaigning for “their candidate.” This they were entitled to do provided these “several days” come out of party funds, and are not charged to taxpayers.

“They arrived for their meeting by charter,” said one resident. “And if it was just a cabinet meeting they came for they should have returned the same night. Our runway is lighted and there are no longer restrictions on night flying. So, if they had not come to campaign, there was no reason for them to prolong their visit.”

Several said they saw Shane Gibson and Alfred Gray moving from “house to house” campaigning. And Jerome Fitzgerald and Michael Halkitis, driving up and down streets in “quite a dizzy manner” as if they were looking for someone in Coopers Town.

One Abaconian wondered if — as one PLP claimed at one of the party’s rallies— they were still going “door to door” and to every “outhouse”, looking in every “rat hole” and in every “snake hole” to make certain they had found all voters. Apparently, many North Abaconians are still offended by those remarks — they wondered which one of them lived in a “rat hole.”

Carlos Lamm, about whom questions have been laid on the table of the House in connection with a number of contracts for the Ministry of Education, was spotted driving Education Minister Fitzgerald around in Treasure Cay. “I also saw Lamm driving Mr Fitzgerald’s MP car – MP13,” he said, “down to the police station on Friday evening, September 28.”

Many Abaconians were full of chatter. Another remarked: “Boy money down here flowing like sand through a sieve!”

They told us several stories. “A young lady,” we were told, “went to one of their (PLP) functions. She was asked to fill out a questionnaire about some symposium. She said she gave answers that she knew they wanted to hear. They paid her $70. However, another young lady was also given the form to fill out. She filled it out by writing what she really felt — which was not what they wanted to hear. Anyway, she was paid $20.” We presume that both of the young ladies were FNM supporters.

And then there was the story about Blackwood. “About two weeks ago,” said our informant, “the FNM planned a function in Blackwood. PLP operatives came into Blackwood and paid off FNM members not to show up at the meeting. The FNM took the money, but many of them attended the meeting.”

“Man, that’s for sure,” laughed another, “the money is flowing down here and we getting some of it!”

And then there are the accusations of victimisation for those thought not to have voted for the PLP to which, some claim, God has given the country. Why even Prime Minister Christie has confirmed that anyone who votes against his government will find it more difficult to get their just due.

Not only are loyal civil servants being victimised in Abaco, but they are quaking in their boots throughout these islands. No one ever heard of such threats and dislocation of dedicated civil servants under the FNM government, but somehow the PLP have this inbred idea of entitlement, and anyone who dares interfere with that entitlement is expendable.

It is now time for Bahamians to wake up and understand what they are really dealing with — if this nonsense continues their future is at stake.