By KHRISNA VIRGIL
Tribune Staff Reporter
kvirgil@tribunemedia.net
THE government must set in motion radical changes to procedures of accountability before salary increases for Members of Parliament are considered, according to Free National Movement Deputy Chairman Dr Duane Sands.
Speaking to The Tribune yesterday, Dr Sands said the Bahamian economy’s condition is simply too fragile to prioritise higher wages for MPs.
His words were in direct response to Deputy Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis’ comments that parliamentarians should receive more money to curtail the temptation of doing things that are not right.
Mr Davis told a reporter that: “(it would) remove the temptation for politicians to do things that are not right. Because if they (MPs) are earning a living by doing this, then there would be no need for them to do anything else, I think that’s what the Bahamian public has to understand.
“The feelings of our public is probably more rooted in their scepticism about us as politicians and their mistrust of all of us as politicians.”
“But hopefully the time has come for us to win back the trust of the people. When I say win back the trust of the people, I mean politicians on all sides of the spectrum.”
Dr Sands pinpointed the performance of MPs over the last two years and said their conduct does not warrant an increase.
“When you look at the performance of parliamentarians and the nonsense that goes on in the House, in addition to when they don’t show up to start the House on time, the number of constituency offices that are not open and the MPs that are available to constituents, there needs to be a radically different culture for parliamentarians before you can say they deserve a raise.
“Let me be very clear: if you are talking about benefits to the Bahamian people like community development, a case can be made.
“You could make whatever case you want as to why they should get a pay increase, but when you juxtapose that to the ordinary Bahamian there is no way that any kind of pay increase ought to be thought about or considered. So you could justify, pretty it up, embellish it and try to come up with reasons, but at the end of the day an argument in favour just shows a disconnect from reality.”
Public discourse on the matter was reignited last week after leader of government business in the House, Dr Bernard Nottage, announced that a select committee recommended a review of MP’s salaries. The select committee report also suggested the construction of a new Parliamentary complex. A review of the Deputy Speaker’s salary was also ordered.
The House Speaker has an $80,000 per year salary while his deputy receives $32,000. An MP’s salary is $28,000 a year.
Officials have not made any suggestions of how much the increases would cost taxpayers.
Comments
sheeprunner12 10 years, 5 months ago
"Voodoo Man" Davis should be ashamed of himself................ the majority of MPs are people of means, many are millionnaires and most have secure forms of income.
If an MP needs a lot of money (more than $50,000) to represent their constituents, it can only mean one or two things. Either the constituents look to the MPs to "take care o them" OR the MPs use money as a form of "bribery".
Cobalt 10 years, 5 months ago
So let me get this straight.... Not only is Phillip Brave Davis admitting that politicians take bribes for money; but he's also suggesting that integrity, values, decency, and respect for the public office for the Commonwealth of the Bahamas is NOT enough incentive to do what's right and laudable by God and country??? WOW! I must be seeing things. This can't be real. How do Bahamians keep voting for these clowns?????? Seriously Bahamians????? Seriously?????
sheeprunner12 10 years, 5 months ago
Yep, its there in black and white for ALL of us to see/read................ read Pamela Poitier's letter in the Guardian about how Brave treats his own people in Cat Island........... sounds like Pindling and South Andros in bygone days.
BayStreet23 10 years, 5 months ago
In the April 19, 2012 article in the Guardian and Tribune relating to the financial disclosure of candidates, 56 of the candidates were millionaires. How many of the sitting MPs are among the Millionaire's MP Club?
Also, how many of the current MPs currently adhere to the annual disclosure act that is law? Let's have them comply with the current disclosure law and then we can discuss salary increases.
SP 10 years, 5 months ago
"Deputy Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis’ comments that parliamentarians should receive more money to curtail the temptation of doing things that are not right."
“The feelings of our public is probably more rooted in their skepticism about us as politicians and their mistrust of all of us as politicians.”
So all we had to do over the last forty years was give Members of Parliament raises and they would have renounced piracy and stopped pillaging & plundering the country?
Mr. Davis also wants us to believe that he himself, Perry Christie and Hubert Ingraham knew nothing about oil exploration companies until they were exposed deeply intertwined with oil exploration stakeholders in 2012.
Who ever heard of a satisfied Pirate?
kairosmatt 10 years, 5 months ago
I second BayStreet23: The annual disclosure law needs to be strictly enforced. Noncompliance means that the MP loses his/her seat.
But also all taxes, duties, fines and utilities should be paid up to date and publicly disclosed, and those who do not comply or are behind should lose their seat immediately.
I'm also curios as to what the law is when it comes to MPs holding other jobs while in office. Are they allowed to? Because they all certainly do.
sheeprunner12 10 years, 5 months ago
And who is going to enforce the Law?????????????? Who is going to take the Prime Minister, cabinet and MPs to court for non-compliance of the Public Disclosure Act?????????????
Hogfish 10 years, 5 months ago
"Gimme more money so I don't have to steal from you! "
this man is beyond disgusting.
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 5 months ago
Boys and Girls of the Bahamas, the lesson for today is: if your employer does not pay you enough to support the lifestyle that you want, steal from him. It is ok. It is the employer's responsibility to make sure that your propensity for thiefin' is kept in check
How were these people ever elected? Seriously. These men don't need higher salaries, they need character and integrity. My daddy had eight children, he wasn't wealthy but on his small salary he paid off a mortgage and educated eight kids. Over those years of not having the wants I remember him repeating, "no one could ever point and say I stole money or sold drugs", I wonder how many of our politicians can say the same?
This is the third shameful statement coming from this man. I pray PGC dissolves parliament soon. Passing the baton is not an option.
What does Brave have to say to the thousands of Bahamians who are earning minimum wage? LESS THAN 10,000 per year. LESS THAN THE 28,000 received by a sitting MP? What is the argument for these people? Do you intend to raise their salaries too OR will you encourage them to EMBEZZLE, BRIBE and EXTORT? Hmmm?
Fitmiss 10 years, 5 months ago
I agree with your statements... This is such a disgraceful thing to say and where it could be recorded and broadcasted worldwide, but sadly a lot of people feel that way. I have heard people say if their boss would pay them more, they wouldn't have to take things from the company. They claim they are taking what they are owed. Where have our morals, integrity, and character gone? No wonder the country is experiencing anarchy....
sheeprunner12 10 years, 5 months ago
Brave never had any INTEGRITY ........... he made his money representing CRIMINALS. There is nothing HONORABLE about him. PERIOD
realfreethinker 10 years, 5 months ago
Out of the mouths of idiots.
Cobalt 10 years, 5 months ago
What are you talking about??? Sheeprunner12 is absolutely right. Brave Davis has made a profitable living by representing known criminals and drug-dealers. So when you really think about it, the Bahamas has a DPM that profits from a high crime rate! What a mess the Bahamas is.
PastorTroy 10 years, 5 months ago
Data Pirates of the Caribbean: The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas.
READ ABOUT IT HERE!
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/arti…
TalRussell 10 years, 5 months ago
Hubert and his red shirts thought in 2012 they knew how to outdo the skeptics but the voters beat the hell out them at their own game of painting over mistrust. How damn clever of the reds Comrade Deputy Chairman Dr. Duane but he forgets it was this same feelings of blatant skepticism and mistrust over even his own red shirts politicians, which lead to his and his red colleagues defeat at the polls in 2012. What Comrade Duane isn't saying, is that MP's should never be trusted with the powers to decide how much they are to be paid, their benefits and certainly not how they will be pensioned off for the rest of their natural lives, all at the expense burdens of struggling taxpayers. There needs be an independent body to review and settle wage and benefits issues for MP's, not the MP's themselves. I don't trust none them. Do you?
sansoucireader 10 years, 5 months ago
Could hardly believe what I was hearing when I heard him speak these words on Cable 12 News. He couldn't even look the reporter in the eye when he made those idiotic remarks! Do any of them even think before they open their mouths?
crabman 10 years, 5 months ago
In business it has always been noted that"if you buy cheap, you get cheap". If you want to own your very own politician, you must pay the price.
GQ 10 years, 5 months ago
The Deputy P.M's comments are nothing short of ridiculous. More pay will only mean more tiefing and crooked deals. This set of crooks make me almost as ashamed as I was back in the 80's to say that I was Bahamian. I wish there was a recall possibility so the Bahamian people could get them out.
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 5 months ago
What Brave Davis knows and failed to reveal, is that the main problem with these men is their insatiable appetites. They will not be satisfied with 60000, 80000, 5mil, they will simply always want more than they get, more than they need. please Sir, may I have some more? They will never stop theifin', extortion' or bribin'. They needs to go back to the seedy underbelly they crawled out from.
Emac 10 years, 5 months ago
LOL..Not beggin for more like Oliver Twist though.
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 5 months ago
Yeah, always crying poor mouth...
Purcell 10 years, 5 months ago
I got a cheaper solution: throw them in jail.
Tbc 10 years, 5 months ago
We owe the Hon. DPM, a debt of gratitude for his candor and honesty: he was 'jus keepin' it real' - for him ! Yinna een see, heen even embarrassed to tell we dis is as much 'respect' and 'regard as he has fa we. Wha yinna 'spect from a 'lawyer' whose practice' thrived off representing 'drug smuggling and peddling' miscreants. 2017, PLEASE HURRY, so these miscreants could crawl back to their ;natural habitat', the 'sewer' called the 'Criminal Justice System' - or more accurately, the JUSTICE FOR CRIMINALS SYSTEM. Our DPM has just CONFIRMED, CRIME DOES PAY !
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 5 months ago
I agree completely. He could have kept quiet until either 2017 or Perry stepped down. Slowly but surely he and Fred Mitchell are revealing themselves and how much they care for the Bahamian populace.
sheeprunner12 10 years, 5 months ago
Yep, its there in black and white for ALL of us to see/read................ read Pamela Poitier's letter in the Guardian about how Brave treats his own people in Cat Island........... sounds like Pindling and South Andros in bygone days.
henny 10 years, 5 months ago
I agree with the above comments. I could hardly believe what Davis was saying when he made those ignorant and not thought of comments. What was he thinking? Evidently he wasn't. What does that say to the Bahamians trying to make ends meet and those with no income??...... "Be tempted to steal or sell drugs in order to survive."..... MP's already receive enough to live above and beyond means with their private practice and position as an MP only makes it even better for them. The most logical and sensible thing to do is for government to give pay increases on a regular annual basis to all government employees and not just those who are members of the "elite" club. Raise the minimum wage for all workers no matter where they are employed. Don't hold back pay increases where they are due to the lower level employee.
sheeprunner12 10 years, 5 months ago
THESE MPs HAVE NO SHAME..................... THEY ARE AMORAL
digimagination 10 years, 5 months ago
Worth reading!
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-… http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-202434…
242orgetslu 10 years, 5 months ago
This is the link where the full story is: http://si.com/vault/article/magazine/MA…
Across the inky-blue Gulf Stream from Florida, near the sheer edge of the Great Bahama Bank, a new island is emerging from the sea. Although it bears the appealing name Ocean Cay, this new island is not, and never will be, a palm-fringed paradise of the sort the Bahamian government promotes in travel ads. No brace of love doves would ever choose Ocean Cay for a honeymoon; no beauty in a brief bikini would waste her sweetness on such desert air. Of all the 3,000 islands and islets and cays in the Bahamas, Ocean Cay is the least lovely. It is a flat, roughly rectangular island which, when completed, will be 200 acres and will resemble a barren swatch of the Sahara. Ocean Cay does not need allure. It is being dredged up from the seabed by the Dillingham Corporation of Hawaii for an explicit purpose that will surely repel more tourists than it will attract. In simplest terms, Ocean Cay is a big sandpile on which the Dillingham Corporation will pile more sand that it will subsequently sell on the U.S. mainland. The sand that Dillingham is dredging is a specific form of calcium carbonate called aragonite, which is used primarily in the manufacture of cement and as a soil neutralizer. For the past 5,000 years or so, with the flood of the tide, waters from the deep have moved over the Bahamian shallows, usually warming them in the process so that some of the calcium carbonate in solution precipitated out. As a consequence, today along edges of the Great Bahama Bank there are broad drifts, long bars and curving barchans of pure aragonite. Limestone, the prime source of calcium carbonate, must be quarried, crushed and recrushed, and in some instances refined before it can be utilized. By contrast, the aragonite of the Bahamian shallows is loose and shifty stuff, easily sucked up by a hydraulic dredge from a depth of one or two fathoms. The largest granules in the Bahamian drifts are little more than a millimeter in diameter. Because of its fineness and purity, the Bahamian aragonite can be used, agriculturally or industrially, without much fuss and bother. It is a unique endowment. There are similar aragonite drifts scattered here and there in the warm shallows of the world, but nowhere as abundantly as in the Bahamas. In exchange for royalties, the Dillingham Corporation has exclusive rights in four Bahamian areas totaling 8,235 square miles. In these areas there are about four billion cubic yards—roughly 7.5 billion long tons—of aragonite. At rock-bottom price the whole deposit is worth more than $15 billion. An experienced dredging company like Dillingham should be able to suck up 10 million tons a year, which will net the Bahamian government an annual royalty of about $600,000.
ArtOvation 10 years, 5 months ago
Please explain this assertion you made or step down Mr. Deputy Prime Minister.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTmzs-T…
ProfessorTinker 10 years, 5 months ago
Brave Davis you have to be the most stupid politician ever to hold a position. Well that is not a real position any how. You are only a shadow but a shadow that is making some ridiculous comments. But at least you are telling the truth, but for you to demand from the people more money or corruption you should be impeach, jailed or worse tared and feathered. You guys need to be banned from public office. But again and again like I have said so many times, if this is what the Bahamian people want then they deserve all that comes with it. When will the people wake up and petition the government and demand quality governing. Sadly many of those people from the 1960's and 70's have passed on. You can petition the white man but your are blinded by your own color. Don't settle for this nonsense. Vote them out or impeach them.
sheeprunner12 10 years, 5 months ago
Is Brave being paid to be Deputy Prime Minister???????????? Well, the position doesnot even exist in our Constitution!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thats how bad his comments are...... he speaks as a DPM hologram.................... LOL
ProfessorTinker 10 years, 5 months ago
You know you are right it does not mention Deputy Prime Minister but it does state temporary minister. Read as follows:
Temporary Ministers. 76.- 1. Whenever a Minister other than the Prime Minister is unable, by reason of his illness or absence from The Bahamas or absence from his duties on leave, to perform the functions of his office, the Governor-General may, in writing, authorize another Minister to perform those functions or appoint a person to be a temporary Minister:
SensibleGoverning2016 10 years, 5 months ago
Brave Davis needs to be ask to resign for such stupid comments.
sheeprunner12 10 years, 5 months ago
The majority of our Parliamentary leaders are over 55 years old........... the Prime Minister is over 70 years old ............................ they are not showing their wisdom at all........... so RETIRE, RESIGN and stop living off the GRAVY TRAIN.
Is this National Service or a JOB?????????????? Brave Davis deserves to define where this generation of parliamentarians view their role in Bahamian governance.
THE BAHAMAIAN PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM IS BROKEN..................... NEEDS REFORM...... BUT THE CONSTITUTIONAL COMMISSION DOESNT THINK SO.
THIS IS A SAD SITUATION......................... SIGH
ProfessorTinker 10 years, 5 months ago
This is what happen when there are no institutions to educate the young generation on there system of government and how it works and when the work force is mostly servants. I don't know what will happen when the shit hits the fan. All these MP or 90% of them are lawyers and they are just screwing this country up.
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