The Tribune

WITH PRIME Minister Perry Christie telling the press that he will announce the date for the gambling referendum after this week’s cabinet meeting, Archbishop Patrick Pinder yesterday released in all Catholic churches his seven-page reflections on the Bahamas’ illegal gambling.

The Baptist have taken a strong stand against gambling, whether it be the numbers “racket”, the casinos or the web shops. One of their members has urged churches nation-wide to stand together to block legalisation of gambling. This particular member is convinced that to legalise gambling would only add to the country’s social decay.

He is convinced that Bahamians will not be able to exercise self control to manage their finances responsibly.

Although former prime minister Ingraham, when asked by the press, denied that the FNM party had accepted any funds from numbers houses to finance its party’s Abaco bye-election, he believed that some individual FNMs had accepted private donations. As usual Prime Minister Christie was not so forthcoming. He did not know whether his party had received numbers houses’ donations for the recent bye-election. “I’m hoping,” he told the reporter, “that we have a lot of lawful donations.”

A referendum to solve this debate is not required under the Constitution.

However members of both parties — particularly the PLP— are so compromised by their various associations that PLP MPs have decided to relinquish their parliamentary duties and defer to the people on this question. This decision has led several angry Bahamians to question whether from now on the Christie government is to be a government by referendum. Having been warned by two credit rating agencies to watch our margins — with Standard & Poor’s economic outlook for the Bahamas moving from “stable” to “negative”, this country can ill afford to finance unnecessary referendums.

Of course, no one can forget that for many years the late Percy Munnings – the wealthy “numbers man” – was the PLP’s generous party treasurer, and made his Wulff Road building available to the party for the publication of its newspaper. Therefore, it would be difficult at this late stage in its history for the PLP to shut down the “gambling shops.” If they are to be shut down, the Christie government wants the Bahamian people to do it.

Archbishop Pinder stressed the need for the people to be informed of the facts, “otherwise a referendum becomes an empty exercise.” He pointed out, as he has done before, that games of chance “in themselves do not constitute an evil.”

However, he said, “the Catechism goes on to make it abundantly clear that games of chance can lead to evil. It notes that such activities ‘become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs or for those of others. The passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement’ – in other words, while games of chance in and of themselves are not evil, habitual gambling can lead to a number of evils.

“No matter how small your income,” said the Archbishop, “it is far better to save regularly than to gamble regularly.

“Gambling in excess has a great potential for generating intemperate behaviour and for many, addictions,” he said. “It is from intemperance and addiction that many societal ills arise. Therein lies the real danger of permitting gaming that is an unregulated, free-for-all. It is our duty to take whatever measures lie in our power to help Bahamians avoid the potential and dangerous pitfalls of gaming or any activity that could lead to harm for the individual or society.

“To craft worthwhile responses to our national challenges,” he said, “we must begin with honest assessment. We must seek good information about all our country’s challenges as opposed to making unsubstantiated decisions that lead to even greater problems. In the case at hand, for example, we need to go into the referendum knowing what happens in the web shops. How specifically are they contravening the present law? Can the present law, as it now stands, be enforced? How many Bahamians frequent these establishments to play games of chance? Who are they? How much do they spend per day, per week, per year? Is it disposable income, or does the spending contribute to domestic challenges in terms of stressing family relations or finances?

“Is it not time to change the law in order to effectively regulate a behaviour which is illegal, lawless, long-standing and unregulated. This activity continues boldly and publicly without apparent regard and respect for or fear of the current law? What would be the nature of the proposed law intended to regulate the illegal lottery? Surely we deserve to be assured by public authority that the law will be enforced regardless of the outcome of the referendum.…”

He said it was “urgent for our people to understand that this permissive attitude towards the so-called ‘small sins’ strikes at the heart of what we understand as democracy and order. We must obviously find and attack the roots of the problem of persistent lawlessness in our country. It could be that selfishness has been placed on the throne of all too many Bahamian minds and hearts. I believe that we are experiencing the dire symptoms of a cultural-moral disease, which took root with the spread of a well-defined and often noted sense of entitlement. Everyone owes you, but you owe nothing — not to family, not to neighbours, not to government, not to society at large.”

However, he also warned of the danger of the numbers business being driven underground with Bahamians continuing to patronise such operations.

It is a matter that needs deep thought, and much consideration.