The Tribune

DAMIAN Gomez, Minister of State for Legal Affairs, has been uneasy in the Christie cabinet for sometime. At the beginning of the year his unease became public when a rumour — on which he refused to comment— started to circulate that he was considering resigning from the PLP cabinet.

It was claimed at the time that he was annoyed because he felt his government was ignoring his constituents and not living up to promises made to them.

The political pot again started to bubble and boil in April when it was learned that Mr Gomez was trying to convince Prime Minister Christie to allow him to walk out of Cabinet and slam the door behind him. However, Mr Christie refused to accept his resignation. And so Mr Gomez asked to be transferred to another ministry. By June, Mr Gomez was still awaiting an answer to that request. Today, although still State Minister for Legal Affairs, he has been removed as government’s lawyer in the Baha Mar court case.

Asked for reasons for his removal from the Baha Mar case he said “the prime minister wants there to be no appearance of collusion or conspiracy between the government and the contractor or the bank in the whole matter of Baha Mar. He wants to remove any vestige of Cabinet involvement and to have someone who is completely outside of the government” take the case. It would seem that it is now too late for that. With all that has been revealed to date about collusion and possible conspiracy in that case, it will no longer matter whether Mr Gomez is in or out of court.

In April, Mr Gomez wanted to leave the cabinet because of missing files in a case that he had handled when in private practice. He felt that his reputation had been compromised and he did not want it to tarnish the Office of Attorney General. The missing files were for an extradition case that went back about 10 years when now retired Jeanne Thompson was on the bench and had ordered them to be brought to court. They never arrived. We understand that they are yet to be produced.

It has since transpired that many extradition files are still missing from other cases. Obviously, the American government can’t be too happy about this state of affairs. However, this is a matter that cannot he glossed over. It warrants a full and early enquiry into our judicial system.

Although still Minister of State for Legal Affairs, Mr Gomez is not only condemning corruption, but his own government for not taking it seriously.

“It doesn’t matter who is in power,” Mr Gomez told Guardian managing editor Candia Dames on August 17, “the people who are being played are the ordinary people.

“The perception of the public is that we don’t care and that this is just election mouthing off. The reality is once you have done it (the corrupt act) you can pocket whatever you have earned, if you want to call it earnings.”

“There has never been a real attempt to (prosecute) persons who are viewed as having abused public office and made a profit and in contrast when (ex-Haiti dictator) ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier fled and went to France, he had his assets all over the world, the Haitian government pursued him. They got mareva injunctions in England to freeze his assets and they disgorged him of the money that had been corruptly obtained by him.”

But, observed Mr Gomez, “Nothing happens in The Bahamas. Business as usual.”

And that is the whole problem – regardless of what you do, it depends upon who you are as to how much you can sweep under the carpet, shine your corrupt halo, and grin as though “all’s right with the world.” Today it is so bad that a new generation seems to have difficulty separating right from wrong. Today, someone has to stand up and say: “This is the end. No more.”

We must admit that we have never thought much of Mr Damien Gomez, but now we are starting to see him in a new light. At last he is demonstrating that he is a chip off the old block. No wonder retired Archbishop Drexel Gomez was proud to publicly support his son.

He condemned those who entered politics just for what they could get out of it. He was proud that his son was not one of them.

“He didn’t enter to make money and he is not interested in bribery and making deals,” said the retired archbishop. “That is contrary to the way in which I raised him and that is not what we stand for.”

In 1984, Archbishop Gomez — unlike another minister of the gospel during the same period who declared that “principles don’t put food on the table” — stood alone to declare his beliefs.

During the period of the Commission of Inquiry into drug smuggling, the archbishop wrote a minority report.

At that time many persons, believed, because of his close friendships, the Rt Rev (as he then was) Drexel Gomez was a true blue PLP and would go along with the majority report in support of his friends. However, when it came time to turn in the report, Sir James Smith, president, in his letter to the governor reported that a minority report had to be added. The subject was “The Prime Minister’s Finances.” The Minority report, Sir James told the governor, “contains additional comment on that subject by the Rt Rev Drexel W Gomez to which the other members of the Commission felt unable to subscribe.”

The Archbishop went through the Pindling loans, two of which were converted to gifts, the finder’s fee from the sale of the Paradise Island Bridge company “being sought to be explained away by evidence which, in my opinion, was not truthful and a transaction relating to the disposition of certain (Bahamas Catering Shares) which never existed: There were very large deposits, unidentified as well as identified.

“It is certainly feasible,” the Archbishop concluded, “that all of the payments could have been made from non-drug related sources. But in my opinion, the circumstances raise great suspicion and I find it impossible to say that the payments were all non-drug related. Some could have been but, however that may be it certainly cannot be contested that the Prime Minister did not exercise sufficient care to preclude the possibility of drug-related funds reaching his bank account or being applied for his benefit. In the absence of inquiry he could have unwittingly received drug related funds.

“To this extent, a least, he left himself in my opinion, open to criticism for lack of prudence by a person holding the high office of Prime Minister.”

In discussing the case later with one of the deciding participants, we asked why, with so much evidence, they had not come down harder on another group of obvious offenders. The reply was that if they had done that there would be nothing left with which to rebuild The Bahamas.

Now is the time for the younger Gomez to follow in his father’s footsteps and make a difference.