The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

The hypocrisy of politicians never ceases to amaze me. In today’s edition (May 7) of The Tribune on page A5 appeared an article captioned “FNM anger at “INJUSTICE” done to party chairman”. What amazes me most is the ignorance of the law displayed by all of the speakers, including the Leader and his deputy, on the subject. One speaker said “it can’t be acceptable that the police can enter a private citizen’s home and demand the turnover of personal items like computers and cell phones without clear legal cause. We must demand respect and observance of our right to privacy”.

Please tell me Senator, what more legal authority do the police need than a warrant to search? All politicians need to be reminded that no one, and I mean no one, in this archipelago called The Commonwealth of The Bahamas is above the law, although it is the norm for certain elected MPs to believe that they are untouchables, well you, who do, had better change that thought, for one day you may run into a no nonsense police officer who knows his salt and find yourselves in handcuffs and behind bars.

Another MP called it “a very sad and scary time in our country. “We meet at a time” he told supporters, “when our democracy is being threatened, when our citizens are being intimidated, spied on, unfairly targeted, harassed and detained to describe the police presence at his Chairman’s home at which he, MP, was not present, yet he is able to give his audience so graphic a picture of the unlawful conduct of the persons who are responsible for our safety and protection.

He went on to say that the National Security Minister denied having prior knowledge of the police intention to carry out the search. What makes the MP think that the police has any obligation to the Minister or anyone else for that matter to inform of any action that they intend to take in an investigation of any sort. This chain of thought by politicians tend to show their ignorance of the functions of our police force and believe that when a politician is appointed minister of security that he can interfere in administration of the day-to-day running of the force.

This attitude is responsible for the lack of discipline and low morale of the RBPF today.

Then, to add insult to injury, the MP for St Anne’s not only questioned the minister’s denial; but went one step further with his ignorance of the chain of command of the Force and implied that since the Commissioner of Police was out of the country at the time that the Minister of National Security was responsible for the giving of orders to the members of the Force and questioned: “Who is running National Security? Who gave the order?” I’ll answer that for you, Mr MP, it sure was not the Minister of National Security as it had nothing to do with him, you see, Mr Chipman, the Minister of National security runs that Ministry; but the Commissioner of Police runs the RBPF and when he is out of the country that task falls to his deputy.

I would like to refresh the memories of the leader of the FNM, his deputy and the other MPs who were blowing hot air and rubbish over the incident involving the Chairman of their party. They were putting a lot of emphasis on the Chairman’s privacy forgetting that he is a public figure and that his every word act and/or conduct is under the scrutiny of John Q public.

I now wish to bring to you the following actions of the leadership of the FNM a few short years ago when they were in power, actions that brought nary an echo or protest from anyone and I mean anyone in the FNM period:

(a) When the owner of Robin Hood store on Prince Charles Drive removed some barriers from the entry to his food store that prompted an onslaught from the FNM administration resulting in the closure of his store and a goodly number of Bahamian workers hitting the unemployment lines,

(b) The seizure of all of his computers at his head offices and the eventual closure of all of his stores putting another batch of Bahamians out of work? I do not remember hearing a sound from any of the persons howling over a lawful execution of a simple police investigation in a criminal complaint, in fact their silence during the FNM’s bashing of that individual was absolutely deafening. Then what about the Road improvement project when so many middle class Bahamians were relegated to virtual paupers and their children were denied a decent education by the dictatorial process employed by the FNM.

Again their silence was really deafening. When the police is in possession of a search warrant to search a premises the law says that he reads it to the owner of the premises, if asked he may let you see it; but there is nothing that says he must give it to you or a copy of it, if he is refused entry after reading it he can breach your door, if he finds what he is looking for he must take it with him, if someone obstructs, he can carry them too.

A lot of power in a warrant, minister, every citizen has certain rights under the Constitution; but breaking the law is definitely not one of them and when it comes to law breakers and felons the police’s powers in apprehending and preventing their escape is awesome. I hold no brief for the PLP, and less for the FNM, as both of them are of the same ilk, Peter ain no better than Paul, they are both holding the Bahamian electorate between a rock and a hard place. 

Suppose Dr Minnis, his deputy and their comrades get together with the PLP and devise a plan to collect all the back taxes owed Government by members of both parties, come up with a good and honest collection agency for the collection of Government funds and seek ways and means of reducing crime instead of blowing hot air at each other on non issues and stop the run-away borrowing and needless spending and crony contracts.

As it stands now, both parties have one foot on a banana skin and the other over a political grave, at the end of this administration it would have been fifty years of continuous PLP corrupt and inept administrations in this once Christian and God-fearing nation, that would be 10 years more than what God put on the children of Israel, that appears to be a hard and harsh sentence for our misdeed in voting PLP;  but I am sure that come 2017 we would have seen the error of our ways.

ERRINGTON W I WATKINS

Nassau,

May 7, 2014.